The Valencia Conselleria de Sanidad Universal y Salud Pública governmental health body has incorporated the Hospital de Torrevieja into the procedure for attention to the Heart Attack Code, which aims to minimise the time that elapses from when a patient presents symptoms of acute myocardial infarction until they are treated.
In this way, after the summer period, a Hemodynamic Unit will be launched, which will allow expanding the coverage of angioplasties for the treatment of a heart attack. This assistance service will be offered from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., Monday to Friday, and will be supported by a 24 hours a day, 365 days a year unit at the General Hospital of Elche.
The Heart Attack Code Plan works thanks to the coordination of professionals from the Hemodynamic units, which have interventional cardiologists, and the rest of the professionals from Primary Care centres and Health Emergency Services.
The purpose is to reduce the mortality rate of acute myocardial infarction. Therefore, coordination between professionals is essential to be able to treat the patient as soon as possible. In this way, when a patient goes to a care service with symptoms of a heart attack, the Heart Attack Code can be activated from any medical centre or service.
Thus, once the Code has been activated, the patient is transferred to the hospital, in this case to the Torrevieja Hospital, where they will receive treatment, which is normally an urgent catheterisation with immediate opening of the artery causing the infarction (primary angioplasty) or, if angioplasty is not possible for any reason, the administration, in the shortest possible time, of a medication that allows the dissolution of the clot that causes the infarction (fibrinolysis).
