The cath laboratory was inaugurated by His Excellency Qadhi Saeed Al Murooshid, Director General of the Dubai Health Authority, in the presence of Dr Shawqi Khoori, CEO of Rashid Hospital.
His Excellency Al Murooshid said:
“The opening of this cath laboratory is significant because it shows our commitment to cater to the medical needs of the population now and in future. Anticipating the requirement of such a facility we have built a cath lab which is equipped with state-of-the-art technology to deal with cardiac cases.”
Previously the cath laboratory at the hospital was shared with the radiology department but in recent times with the influx of cardiac cases, we decided to set up a completely dedicated cath suite, said Dr Shawqi Khoory.
The cath suite is equipped with a procedure room and has 8 beds for patients, a control room for all the equipments and monitors and seminar room and an on-call room for doctors.
Dr Fahad Omar Baslaib, Head of Cardiology Department at the Rashid Hospital said, “The cath suite has the latest technology required for coronary angiography. It is also equipped with other devices such as the intravascular ultrasound machine which does an ultrasound inside the artery and also checks the pressure of the artery; this is a facility which not many places in the region have.
“Furthermore, the beauty of the cath suite is that patients can stay back in the same suite for 24 hours and patients also have access to round-the-clock on-call doctor service. This facility is also unique because unlike most places, we do not transfer our patients once the procedure is completed.”
The procedures that will be conducted in the Cath suite include primary angioplasty, coronary angioplasty with stent implantation, balloon valvuloplasty, permanent peacemaker implantation etc.
Dr Baslaib said the cath suite has a capacity to deal the influx of patients the hospital is witnessing. “We felt it was time to expand our services because in recent times we began to see a high volume of cardiac cases. Last year the admissions to the cardiology department was 1600 patients, this figure amounts to 11% of the total admissions in Rashid Hospital.
The unit is the third busiest department after the trauma centre and the general surgery department. In 2008 we conducted between 850-900 cardiac procedures. With the setting up of this newly equipped cath suite, we can meet the needs of our patients now and in future.”