The Cardiology Service of the General Hospital Vladimir Ilich Lenin has historically occupied a leading position in the practice of specialized medical procedures, among them the implantation of pacemakers, a procedure which, due to the quantity and quality achieved, places it among the first institutions in the country.
Although the number of these devices implanted has decreased in recent years, due to the complex economic situation facing the country, the vital activity has not stopped.
According to the hospital’s deputy director, Dr. Sara Liz Ricardo Suárez, “we are at the forefront of pacemaker implantation in the country. We have a coronary intensive care unit. In the institution we had an average implantation rate that sometimes reached up to 400 pacemakers.
These are very expensive devices and since in the last two years, above all, the country has had many difficulties in acquiring them, this has led to the existence of a list of patients waiting for them, which is a great danger to their health.
Some are hospitalized because their condition is more serious and others are waiting at home for the arrival of these devices for implantation. That is why we have been implementing a strategy for some years to reuse these devices”.
The pacemaker implantation program maintains its assistance work thanks to the work of the Cardiology Service of the hospital giant for more than three decades, which has also managed to reduce the mortality rate due to myocardial infarction.
cardiology service, pacemakers, reuse, Lenin Hospital, Holguín, Cuba
In this sense, the leading doctor and head of the pacemaker implantation department is Dr. Reyber Jesús Domínguez Pérez, with an outstanding activity, according to the health official. “He is a zealous guardian of this work and thanks to him, his work team and the Cardiology service, made up of specialists, residents, nurses and service personnel, we have managed to maintain, not the rhythm we had in previous years, but we have decently maintained an indicator of pacemaker implants that has allowed us to provide coverage to those patients who have a more compromised health situation”.
The patients who by medical criteria require a pacemaker are those who present heart rhythm problems. Therefore, this device is used to regulate the heartbeat. Therefore, whether it is due to heart block, bradycardia, which is a slow heartbeat, or tachycardia, which is a fast heartbeat, this procedure is necessary. It may also be necessary when there is heart failure or when the heart cannot pump blood effectively.
Heart diseases in the province of Holguín claim an important number of lives every year. At the end of the year 2023 they were the first cause of mortality, with an upward trend during the last five years.
This constituted the main cause of death in the municipalities of Gibara, Banes, Holguín, Calixto García, Urbano Noris, Cueto, Mayarí, Frank País and Sagua de Tánamo, which represented 25.7 percent of the total number of deaths registered in that period in this northeastern province. In order of causality, ischemic diseases accounted for 62.1 percent, hypertensive diseases 21.1 percent, others 16.5 percent and rheumatic diseases 0.2 percent.
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