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Head of the Cardiovascular Surgery Clinic with the Targu Mures Emergency Institute for Cardiovascular Diseases and Transplantation (IUBCvT) Horatiu Suciu said on Wednesday that one thousand open-heart surgeries were performed at the institute in 2022 and that this is the only clinic in Romania that manages to cover the entire range of diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases, told Agerpres.
"There were a thousand open-heart surgeries, many patients treated of myocardial infarction, which proves two things. First, the fact that cardiovascular morbidity (mortality) is still a big problem in Romania and not only in Romania. Everywhere, cardiovascular diseases are a leading cause of death. And secondly, the Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases and Transplantation in Targu Mures has a complete and complex activity, working around the clock to provide surgery in adults, children and also heart transplantations. Practically, we are the only facility in Romania that manages to cover the entire range of activities related to the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases, with good outcomes," said Suciu.
He added that all this activity is not enough, and the fact that a new Heart Institute will be built in Targu Mures on funds under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) will lead to a substantial increase in activity.
"I want to mention that we will not have more beds; we will have more such surgeries, more areas where these activities, operations, cardiac interventions will be performed at a much higher pace. Very clear statistical studies show that still only about half of the necessary cardiac surgeries and interventions in Romania are performed," said Suciu.
The fact that the projects for the two heart institutes in Romania, the one in Targu Mures and the other in Bucharest, are funded under PNRR, said Suciu, is an extraordinary thing that meets a real demand for cardiovascular healthcare.
"Even if the institute will be a new building (...) it will be connected through a direct link to the Targu Mures Emergency County Clinical Hospital, with which we obviously have an excellent collaboration that will continue. But what we don't want people to get under the impression that we want to run away somewhere; on the contrary, we stay here, but we will be able to increase the number and quality of our cardiac interventions. This is a project that has been made public and costs 105,000,000 euros," said Suciu.
IUBCvT Targu Mures manager Mariana Ciorba said that in 2022 the facility's activity was "particularly prodigious" and resulted in the performance of three heart transplantation procedures.
In addition to transplantations, Ciorba said, there were also 673 cardiovascular surgeries in adults, 187 cardiovascular surgeries in children, 132 percutaneous transcatheter aortic valve implantations - the famous TAVI procedures - 8 hybrid cardiac interventions, 48 interventional cardiology procedures in children with congenital heart malformations, and 713 percutaneous dilation procedures.
Statistics also show 247 pacemaker implantations, 85 pacemaker procedures, 85 electrophysiology procedures, 49 internal defibrillator implantations, 29 resynchronisation pacemaker implantations, 27 complex ablation procedures; 398 patients were treated for acute myocardial infarction and 31 patients for the prophylaxis of sudden cardiac death due to arrhythmia.
"I would like to add that all the activities under the National Health Program for Cardiovascular Diseases take place at the Emergency Institute for Cardiovascular Diseases and Transplantation (...) Our activity and efforts now will be deployed in a much more appropriate space, which will meet most modern standards, in a new building (...) On January 11, 2023, the Ministry of Health informed us in an official address that the evaluation of the projects submitted under PNRR pillar 5 hospital infrastructure 9 was completed and the project submitted by the Emergency Institute for Cardiovascular Diseases and Transplantation ranked first with a score of 92 points," said Ciorba.
Apart from the project for the new institute on PNRR funds, the manager mentioned that other projects for the upgrade of the ventilation installation and the upgrade of the premises of the operating rooms are being carried out at the institute.
Also attending the news conference of IUBCvT Targu Mures were the institute's medical director Liviu Moraru and Mures County Prefect Mara Toganel.
