William Soler Pediatric Teaching Hospital

William Soler Pediatric Teaching Hospital provides cardiovascular surgery, diagnostic and therapeutic catheterization, and post-surgical rehabilitation services for patients referred from throughout Cuba and from other countries. As the National Referral Center for Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiovascular Surgery, the center combines patient care with research and advanced specialist training.

Located in Boyeros municipality in Havana, the center is a 100-bed facility with 3 operating rooms, an intensive care unit, hemodynamics laboratory, clinical laboratory, transfusion service, and diagnostic radiology, echocardiography, stress test, arrhythmia, and electrocardiography services. The staff of 400 includes 223 medical specialists and paramedical personnel, 66% of whom are women.

Proximity to the William Soler Pediatric Teaching Hospital and the Hematology Institute at the same site facilitates ongoing consultation and collaboration among specialists in different fields, as well as shared computerized axial tomography (CAT), bacteriology, special blood tests, and some logistical services with the hospital.

Since its inauguration, the center has prioritized care for children under 3 years old. In newborns presenting heart disease, 20%-40% of cases are critical and potentially fatal, requiring highly specialized care. With advances in surgery, interventional catheterization, and other techniques, treatments have become increasingly successful at ever younger ages.

Of 7488 surgical interventions performed between 1986 and 2008, 30% were in children under 1 year old. During the same period, mean post-surgical survival of children under 1 year old was 73.6%.

Even as more complex pathologies in ever younger patients are being treated with surgery, survival continues to improve. Mean post-surgical survival of children under 1 year old in 2005-2008 was 87.2%, and 86.0% in those operated on with CPB, compared to 67.9% mean survival in the latter group over 22 years since 1986.

Grants:

• Enhancing Pediatric Intensive Care for Children with Congenital Heart Malformations (2006)
• Enhancing Pediatric Intensive Care for Children with Congenital Hepatic Disorders (2006)
• Promoting a Comprehensive Public Health Approach for Children with Intestinal Failure (2009)