Our comprehensive care for patients with severe heart attacks
A perfectly functioning life-saving system is able to bring back to life patients with cardiac arrest, most often during a myocardial infarction, who previously had a slim chance of survival. Today, a cardiac arrest lasting even an hour does not have to mean an unsolvable condition. At the same time, cardiac arrest affects up to 700 people of various ages in Prague every year, of which approximately 150 are treated by cardiologists at the General University Hospital. However, for their return to normal life, a perfect interplay of several local joint workplaces of the 1st Faculty of Medicine of the UK and VFN Prague is needed.
The first step to success: Lay resuscitation
Prague is quite unique among European capitals (except for the capitals of the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands), because up to 80 percent of lay people provide first aid, i.e. start lay resuscitation for a patient who collapses on the street. This is followed by controlled telephone-mediated resuscitation on line 155 or 112. Another advantage is that the Rescue Service hl. city of Prague has a single dispatch center, is excellently organized and cooperates with several cardio centers. One of them is the Cardiocenter at VFN. If the patient's circulation can be restored, there is a good chance of saving his life. If normal procedures fail to restore circulation, resuscitation is continued and the patient is transported to the hospital without recirculation. If this condition persists even after arrival, the patient is immediately connected to extracorporeal circulation (the method is called ECPR, extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation) by a specialized team of cardiologists at the 2nd Internal Clinic of the 1st LF UK and VFN, which temporarily replaces the function of the heart and lungs, i.e. blood circulation.
