President College recently organized a visit to the renowned National Heart Institute (IJN). Malaysia on 13th of March 2012. I was lucky enough to be chosen to participate in this programme. I fact, I learned some things that i never knew before and it was a once in a life time experience for me; Thanks to President College. =)
After we gathered at college in the morning, Miss Farah immediately started us off to the National Heart Institute. We took the LRT from PWTC station to Titiwangsa station and from there we headed to the hospital by walking. It was quite a distance from the LRT station to the hospital, but anxiety and excitement from the students overcame the tiredness of walking.
As soon as we arrived, we stepped right into the building and I was amazed by the interior design of the hospital because it does not look like a common general hospital or any other private hospital that you can find in Malaysia. It looks like a combination of a mall and a hotel and a hospital. The glass decoration on the wall is so colourful and it attracted my attention once I entered the building. After that, we met a few personnel who represent the hospital to give us a tour.
Firstly, we were brought to the conference room to watch the hospital’s corporate video presentation. Breakfast was prepared for us; it was some delicious sandwiches and we had a choice of coffee or tea. As we watched the video playing, the representatives, Mr Martin and Miss Suzie gave explanations about the National Heart Institute. As I understand it, they have about 59 specialists in this hospital that are ready to perform surgery whenever is necessary. This building is well equipped with operating theatres, one hybrid operating theatres, about 30 beds in the Intensive Care Unit, 10 beds in Paediatric ICU, High Dependency Unit beds etc. It is so advanced that even foreign patients come over here to have their treatment. This proves that this hospital has a very high and esteemed reputation all around the world.
Later, we were led by a nurse to visit the hospital’s wards. The wards that are available in the hospital are four sharing ward, twin sharing wad, single ward, deluxe ward, and wards specifically for the international patients. The charges for the wad range from RM100-RM900 per night. The ward is equipped with comfortable beds, spacious restrooms, and of course, a television. Besides that, machines are installed in the wad to monitor the In-patients’ condition from time-to-time.
On the other hand, I noticed a tube-like structured pathway which I found quite curious and interesting. It functions as a transport pathway for the nurses or the pharmacists or the doctors to transport medicine, blood samples or any other small items that are needed urgently in a very short time. A nurse demonstrated how to operate the transporter thingy.
After the demonstration, we continued our tour to the MRI department. Some of the students had a variety of questions for the radiographer; Mr Amin, about the whole imaging process. He was kind enough to show us the real scanned images from a few patients. It was so cool that we can actually see the heart pumping making the blood flow through the different heart compartments. All of us were so excited about it and resisted when it came time to get out from the imaging area. We were really lucky that there was one patient who had a scheduled scanning while we were there. We managed to witness the whole imaging process and it gave us a whole new idea about how the MRI machine and its functions actually work.
In addition, the National Heart Institute also has a college which offers professional training programmes for candidates that are about to work with IJN. Other than that, in commemoration with Nutrition month, IJN organised few events to provide proper information and education about nutrition for the public and patients as well. There were several booths that were set up selling nutritious products and supplements and some of us went to get some delicious free samples. Plus, the hospital chef was demonstrating ways to cook nutritious meals which can benefit our health and I managed to witness some of the food preparation before we had to leave and get back to college.
Before we left, we had our photo session with Pn Sally, Miss Suzie and Mr Martin, our wonderful guides that patiently showed us around the hospital. I am so happy that I had learnt something which is extra knowledge and experience that we as students can't get from our textbooks. Thank you once again, to those who made this happen.
Before we left, we had our photo session with Pn Sally, Miss Suzie and Mr Martin, our wonderful guides that patiently showed us around the hospital. I am so happy that I had learnt something which is extra knowledge and experience that we as students can't get from our textbooks. Thank you once again, to those who made this happen.
