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The hospital entrance simulates a forest full of gigantic vegetation with a carousel in the middle of the waiting room to make the entry of children more pleasant.
Panama will soon open a pediatric hospital to meet the most complex needs of infants with high-definition technological equipment, unique in the region, in addition to a friendly environment with play areas and images of stories such as ‘Pinocchio’ or ‘Little Red Riding Hood’.
The High Complexity Pediatric Hospital is located within the Ciudad de la Salud of the Social Security Fund (CSS), a modern and large hospital complex located on the outskirts of Panama City that was inaugurated last January.
“The vision for this hospital is that of the State. We are going to cover the deficiencies, the overcrowding and the care that we have in the (other) (pediatric) hospital. The mission is to be able to give the insured children of this country the warmest care with the highest technology,” the medical director of that pediatric hospital, Rubén Álvarez, told EFE.
The medical centre has capacity for 290 hospital beds, 30 intensive care beds, six operating rooms and a “day hospital”, as well as a games room on each floor, said Dr. Alvarez.
There is still no exact date for its full opening, as “technical details are being fine-tuned,” but outpatient clinics for “superspecialties” have been available since last March, the doctor said.
“The care that will be provided here is that of a highly complex hospital. This means that we will be treating the most complex cases in pediatrics,” he said.
Álvarez explained that in this pediatric hospital, “special complex pediatric surgeries” will be performed, as it has “highly specialized equipment,” including one where “neuroradiologists will be able to fine-tune the area of the specific pathology that patients have so that they can be made more precise.”
“We have highly specialized equipment (such as) a 3 Tesla resonance (and) a 640-slice CT scanner. We have very high definition, quality equipment (…) that allows us to fine-tune the diagnosis of our patients, improving care (and) their quality of life,” he added.
In addition, according to the doctor, the MRI machine installed in the center is also in “the United States, Europe and only in Panama in Latin America.”
They also have “the best equipped pharmacy” in the country, as it has everything from simple to more complex drugs for the treatment of cancer, Jenny Vergara, National Coordinator of Pharmacies at the Social Security Fund, told EFE.
“The aim is to achieve the same goal in different facilities and age groups of our population that require health care,” he added.
‘Pinocchio’ and a carousel to make the entrance more pleasant
The hospital entrance simulates a forest full of gigantic vegetation with a carousel in the middle of the waiting room, with the aim of creating a more relaxed atmosphere and making waiting time easier for infants and their companions.
“The carousel is a plus that we have here at the hospital, where, in fact, the situation has arisen where children come to their outpatient clinic to see their specialist, but once they get on the carousel, they don’t want to get off,” said Álvarez.
Each floor is decorated with the allegory of a children’s story: ‘Pinocchio’, ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, ‘The Mandinga Cockroach’ and ‘The Little Prince’, animations captured on the walls, utensils and medical equipment, as EFE was able to verify during a tour, when the hospital wards were not yet open.
The City of Health is an investment of more than 1,000 million dollars that was inaugurated with the slogan of being “the most important public health work of the last 100 years” in the country.
It is made up of four high-complexity hospitals, five institutes and four specialized centers. It has 1,368 beds, 256 intensive care units (ICU), 67 semi-intensive units, 24 anesthesia recovery sections, 51 operating rooms for surgeries and 313 medical offices, according to official information.
