In less than four years, the Latin American Children’s Cardiology Hospital increased its capacity and surgical resolution of pediatric congenital cardiopathies by 1,390 percent. Cardiopathies can be defined as any heart condition or those related to the cardiovascular system.

“We have been able to do 14 times more than what was done in Venezuela to solve any kind of congenital cardiopathy in the past,” said Isabel Iturria, president of the Children’s Cardiology Hospital Foundation and Venezuela’s Vice-Minister of Health Resources on August 12.

Iturria said that in 1998 Venezuela’s public health system was able to deal with 141 cases of congenital cardiopathies, while in recent years almost 2,000 surgeries are performed annually, including hemodynamic studies. (which can be defined as auxiliary studies of the cardiovascular system for the diagnosis and treatment of heart conditions as well as conditions related to the circulatory system in general)

This increase has been possible thanks to the opening of the Children’s Cardiology Hospital on August 20, 2006, located in Caracas’ northwest. The hospital’s base of attention is an integral hospital network formed by 18 regional cardiovascular centers, where the cadiopathy cases are seen according to level of priority.

“We [at the hospital] see the most complex cases, the most difficult pathologies to solve, which are sent through a national reference network based on the regional cardiovascular centers, providing that the pathology is so complex that it can’t be solved directly in those centers,” explained the Venezuelan Vice-Minister.

Iturria stated that the Children’s Cardiology Hospital is the main center among a whole system of national reference centers which allows for the increase of the capacity of attention and resolution heart pathologies in the public sector.

Furthermore, this attention is extended to the member-states of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America. (Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Dominica, Ecuador, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Antigua and Barbuda). Gambia has also benefited from the creation of this hospital, bringing to 62 the number of international patients who have been treated.

“The gap between what the public system offered and what was really necessary to satisfy the national need was huge, but since August 20, 2006, this hospital was launched as an example of what health is in socialism, a new conception of health as a right and not as merchandise,” said Iturria.

On August 20, the Latin American Children’s Cardiology Hospital will celebrate its fourth anniversary, during which 4,313 hearts have been operated.

AVN/Press Office – Venezuelan Embassy to the U.S. / August 13, 2010