The inpatient wards of our clinic take care of heart patients, who have already exhausted all possibilities at the outpatient consultation for check-ups and care and need elective of emergency surgery.
Patients in need of urgent care mostly due to acute myocardial infarction are delivered to our clinic by the Ambulance Service. In optimal cases these patients are delivered to our intensive care unit and then to our heart catheter laboratory as soon as possible after the first symptoms of the infarction. In the laboratory the coronary arteries are filled with contrast material and then the visualized blockage can be opened, the considerable narrowing that causes the blockage dilated and a small metal spiral, a stent is implanted. This procedure considerably improves patients’ chances of survival and shortens their stay at hospital. Depending on the condition of patients the therapy is continued at the cardiology ward, and then at our early rehabilitation unit under the supervision of a doctor, dietitian, and physiotherapist who help patients return to their daily routine.
Urgent medical care is also provided if patients have other acute heart conditions, such as, arrhythmia, heart failure or complications related to earlier treatments. These patients are usually referred from other inpatient or outpatient health care units, our own cardiology outpatients, or in rare cases admission may be based on discussion between patients and the doctor of the clinic.
Elective checkups, or curative interventions are available based on appointments made by the ambulatory unit of the clinic, by cardiology wards or specialist consultations of other hospitals according to the principles of progressive care or by the referral of the GP.
Diagnostic and curative treatment at our clinic covers the full range of heart conditions, including checkup of patients with coronary diseases, valve problems, and myocardial diseases, and the preparation of these patients for heart surgery, if necessary. As part of the checkup, heart catheterization is frequently done, which is actually angiography, the visualization of the coronary arteries by filling them with contrast agents. This is absolutely necessary prior to all heart surgeries but diseases affecting the coronary arteries are also diagnosed using this method. If a significant stenosis is diagnosed, its dilation is done as described above with a catheter, but in more severe cases the narrowing can be operated on, bypassing it by another artery, or by a vein removed from the lower leg. The latest catheter methods offer a solution for the implantation of an artificial valve if the aortic valve is narrowed, catheter is used for reconstructive plastic surgery of a grave bicuspid valve insufficiency, and septal defect closure. An important responsibility of the cardiology wards to treat patients with heart failure who need hospitalization and, in the most severe cases, prepare them for heart transplantation. A special electrophysiology ward deals with the checkup and treatment of arrhythmias. It is here that a pacemaker is implanted when the rhythm of the heart is pathologically slow, or a synchronizing pacemaker in the case of a grave heart insufficiency the two ventricles do not function in sync, or an implantable defibrillator pacemaker when life threatening ventricular arrhythmia needs to be treated The ward is also responsible for catheter treatments of the most common arrhythmia, atrial fibrillation, and grave ventricular tachycardia, or tachycardia associated with rapid regular heart rate often in order to replace life-long medicinal treatment with a catheter treatment.