The Father General,
Bro. Jesús Etayo, cut the ribbon inaugurating the new Interventional Cardiology
Unit at the Fatebenefratelli Hospital on Tiber Island: it is a completely
renewed and extended area equipped with the latest technologies for treating
arrhythmias. A centre of excellence, and one of Italy’s most advanced of its
kind.
The ceremony on 18 May
was attended by the Operational Vice President of the Hospital, Brother Pascal
Ahodegnon, the the General Manager, Marco Longo and the Deputy Commissioner of
Health of the Lazio Region, Giovanni Bissoni, who expressed his admiration at
the progress with work that had been carried out in the hospital. “This hospital
has been through an important rebirth, which, in eighteen months, has given it
full accreditation as a private hospital with the Regional Health Authority,”
he said, “an arduous and serious undertaking for a hospital with this structure
of this kind in the centre of Rome, which is a widely welcomed. The
inauguration of the Arrhythmology Centre is one such example.”
Also present were
cardiologists from many parts of Italy, together with the new Tiber Island UOC
Cardiology Director, Paolo Azzolini, who recalled Andrea Puglisi, the late
Chief Consultant after whom the Electrophysiology and Electrostimulation Unit
is named.
This Unit, where the
new inpatient wards will be dedicated shortly, is equipped with
state-of-the-art Arrhythmology and Interventionist Cardiology outpatient
facilities, and a Telecardiology area. Using the latest remote access
computerised equipment, the cardiologist at the centre can monitor patients
with pacemakers and defibrillators and ECG Holters in their homes, sparing them
the need to go to the hospital. New smaller and unobtrusive technologies, also
for fitting long-term holters, using the band system, make their application
much easier and less uncomfortable.
The outpatient units
will be also able to support imaging management: electrocardiograms and
echocardiograms and imaging acquired during ablation in the operating theatre
will be sent directly to a computerised clinical file and every patient will
not only have the medical report but also the possibility of consulting the
state of their heart online.
“It has not been
easy,” said the Hospital General Manager, Marco Longo, looking broadly at all the work of the past 18
months. “We have implemented so many ideas also with the support of our
suppliers, and have managed to renew the Labour Block and also received
accreditation for genetic medicine. And we are keen grow and measure up to the
best European Centres, with the highest professional skills and expertise of
those who are working here every day.”
