Leading Children’s Hospital Opens Modernized Emergency Department

Bethesda Children’s Hospital has opened its renewed pediatric emergency department, with 15 years of international experience and the most modern equipment available, announced Director General György Velkey at a press conference in Budapest on Wednesday.

György Velkey said that the hospital is one of the country’s leading children’s health centers, treating 200,000 cases a year. “The hospital has undergone significant development in recent years. The number of patients has increased significantly, therefore emergency care had to be adapted to the increased workload,” he pointed out. He added that when the department was set up, “a new system was built,” meaning that in addition to building infrastructure and acquiring equipment, a new team of staff was forged.

He recalled that

the department cost a total of HUF 146 million (EUR 353,000) to set up, a lot of which, HUF 94 million (EUR 120,000), was provided by the Bethesda Hospital Foundation.

The hospital received a further HUF 32 million (EUR 77,300) from central funding for the project, and added a further HUF 20 million (EUR 48,300) from its own resources, he said, adding that the emergency department sees 15,000 patients a year. He pointed out that Bethesda also has a pain management service that is unique in the country.

Velkey stressed that

the emergency department has been provided with state-of-the-art equipment, and has access to a “full arsenal” of laboratory tests that can be carried out on site.

The aim of the development is to provide fast, easily accessible, efficient, and even safer care for patients in need of urgent medical intervention, said the Director General.

Gergely Halász, the head of the pediatric emergency department, said that in patient care they always try to focus on the child, therefore it was an important aspect of the design of the department to combine modern technology with family-orientation. He noted that all examination rooms are fully monitored and a special “shock-relief room” for critically ill patients had been created, equipped with the facilities of an intensive care unit.

The doctor also emphasized that triage – the urgent prioritization of patients based on their health status – by highly qualified nurses significantly speeds up the process of care for those with medical conditions requiring immediate intervention. “The aim of triage is to highlight patients requiring immediate, life-saving, critical intervention and to enable them to start receiving high-quality care without any waiting,” he explained.

Chief Nurse Éva Hosek, head of the specialist team in the pediatric emergency department, said that the department has almost forty experienced specialists on duty 24 hours a day.

Via MTI, Featured image: Facebook/Bethesda Gyermekkórház