The Department of Cardiology at Soroka provides comprehensive state of the art cardiac services to this very large population. However, its infrastructure has not been updated for many years and it is no longer adequate for the size of the population.
It is with this in mind that Soroka Medical Center has made the decision to build a new Heart Center, which will provide cutting edge cardiology services in a high class facility for decades to come.
The department currently performs annually about 20,000 echo studies, 2500 cardiac catheterizations and interventions and 500 electrophysiology procedures. We have an active cardiac CT and MRI program. Our Intensive and step down units admit about 3000 patients per year.
The main challenges facing us in the provision of high quality cardiology care to the Negev population are the inadequate number of monitored beds and the need for more procedure labs. At present the department of cardiology has 9 intensive care beds and only 9 step down beds. This corresponds to 4.8 monitored beds per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to 11-13 per 100,000 inhabitants in other areas of the country. This severe shortage of beds leads to many patients who need a monitored bed not being able to have it, which severely limits the availability of proper cardiology care to all those who need it.
Another pressing need is procedure rooms. We already need a fourth room as the current number is insufficient to meet the growing needs of our population and a fifth room will be needed in the years to come. There is also a need to expand to 8 procedure rooms in the echocardiography laboratory to provide timely quality service.
Our vision therefore to build a new Heart Center that would fill those gaps in infrastructure and provide the Negev population with a modern, efficient and spacious facility for inpatients and outpatients. For this we seek the support of those who might be willing to join this vision and contribute to a new era of modern cardiology in the Negev.
The Cardiac Institute will strive to be a leading center of excellence, providing state of the art comprehensive cardiac care to the Negev population and superb education for health care professionals while excelling in research.
For more information please call our office at 914-725-9070 or email us at AmericanFriends@Soroka.org.
Prominent donor naming and recognition opportunities will be provided.
