THE OLOMOUC TEACHING HOSPITAL ESTABLISHED THE DEPARTMENT OF SURGICAL DISCIPLINES AT THE CHILDREN’S CLINIC, WITH TWO CONTEMPORARILY EQUIPPED OPERATING THEATRES

26. 09. 2011

Today, the Olomouc Teaching Hospital ceremonially opened the newly constructed operating theatres for children’s surgery, including a contemporarily equipped post-operative department. Young patients, who undergo treatment at the Children’s Clinic, will now receive complex care under one roof and it will not be necessary to transfer them to the central operating theatres for surgical interventions. The remodelling and equipping of the operating theatres represent an investment at the total amount of CZK 111 million, out of which CZK 66 million was provided by the hospital from its own resources, the remaining amount of money was contributed by the Ministry of Health.

“During my first visit to the Children’s Clinic four years ago, shortly after I took up my position at the hospital, I talked with the senior consultant of the department saying that it would be good to build operating theatres directly in the clinic’s premises so we would not need to transfer children to another part of the hospital. I am glad that we managed to meet this objective and that we are able to offer the children undergoing treatment at our hospital significantly better care,” remarked MUDr. Radomír Maráček, director of the Olomouc Teaching Hospital. However, the construction of the operating theatres was preceded by other steps that had to be taken. “Some departments, such as the children’s urology, were dislocated at other clinics. We gradually concentrated them under one roof. Two years ago, we repaired the clinic of psychiatry, thus vacating one of its two buildings  where we could move the department of genetics to from the Children’s Clinic. This made space available for the completion of the operating theatres,” explained the director.

As stated by the senior consultant of the Children’s Clinic of the Olomouc Teaching Hospital, prof. MUDr. Vladimír Mihál, CSc. , now the original idea of the “children’s hospital” considered during the construction of the clinic in the middle of the 1970s has finally been realized. “The then senior consultant, professor Jaroslav Lhoták, planned the clinic as a complex facility. Even then, it had one operating theatre which was however closed and the conception was not fulfilled. Hence, it is only now when we have completed the development of the children’s hospital, this means after nearly half a century,” said professor Mihál.

At the two contemporarily equipped operating theatres, operations will be performed in the fields of children’s surgery, urology, ophthalmology, otolaryngology, orthopaedics and neurosurgery. The children’s operating theatres will also include as their part a modernly equipped department of children’s endoscopy because most examinations are carried out under total anaesthesia. Specialists from other clinics will come to see child patients at the clinic. “Until now, we have been transferring children to the central operating theatres before an operation and back after it was finished, which definitely was not ideal because a child should have the maximum possible rest before as well as after such a procedure, and in the case of any complication, corresponding specialized care must be readily available. Now we can ensure that children will be provided with the important rest and safety before and after an operation,” added professor Mihál.

A recovery room is attached to the new operating theatres where young patients will spend the maximum of two hours after an operation and will be monitored by modern technology as well as staff the whole time. A post-operative department with 18 beds was also newly constructed. Every room has its own sanitary facilities; in addition to this, the four rooms for infants are equipped with beds for their mothers. “Our philosophy is to enable a child’s parent or a person accompanying a child to be around the child almost non-stop. In the clinic, we therefore installed fifteen new beds serving also mothers of older children who will be hospitalized at the post-operative department,” said the senior consultant of the clinic. The reconstruction also included decorating the entrance premises and corridors of individual floors of the clinic with children’s motifs as a part of the humanization of the hospital environment, for which the sum of CZK 600 thousand was donated by Sdružení Šance, an association of parents and friends of hemato-oncologically ill children attached to the Olomouc Teaching Hospital.

In addition, the new children’s operating theatres will be gradually supplemented by a children’s pneumology centre which will provide, as the only facility in Moravia, complex care, including specialised bronchoscopic procedures. As one of two departments in the Czech Republic, the Olomouc Teaching Hospital has already been pursuing the discipline of children’s pneumology for 12 years. “Thus, we have children’s anaesthetists, specialised doctors and nurses, children’s psychologists and teachers. The concept of such centralised and complex care is exceptional within the Czech Republic and it copies modern European centres providing cutting edge medical care to child patients,” added professor Mihál.