The department also denied that the patient received medical attention only after a social media post went viral, dismissing the allegation that no heart specialists had been on duty at the time.

It said the case involved a patient who was referred to the Sarawak Heart Centre by a private hospital on March 28.

“Official media records confirm that the patient arrived at the Sarawak Heart Centre’s emergency department at 1am on March 29, and was promptly assessed by an emergency medical officer at 1.10am.

“The case was then referred to a cardiology medical officer, who was attending to another critically ill patient. At 4.33am, after consultation with the on-call cardiology specialist, the patient was admitted to a special ward for further treatment,” the department said in a statement.

It said the patient was reassessed at 9.30am by the specialist, a cardiology medical officer, and a team of nurses during the routine ward rounds.

The department said these rounds were held daily, whether it was a public holiday or not.

On March 29, Pending assemblyman Violet Yong posted a screenshot of a woman’s complaint that her husband had been waiting for nearly 20 hours at the hospital with “no sight of a cardiologist”.

The woman claimed that a doctor at the emergency department told her they would need to wait until Wednesday to see a heart specialist since it was the weekend and the Aidilfitri holidays fell on Monday and Tuesday.

“(State public health minister) Dr Sim Kui Hian, why (is there) no cardiologist at the Sarawak Heart Centre? How can a heart centre operate without any cardiologist for almost 20 hours?” Yong said in her Facebook post.

The Sarawak DAP organising secretary then claimed in another post that “a group of doctors” had attended to the patient “after complaints through various channels”.