Romana

To celebrate its 50th anniversary, the University of Navarra Hospital celebrated a gala benefit concert in the Baluarte Auditorium of Pamplona on December 16, 2011. The money raised will go to the “Children against Cancer” foundation, which carries out cancer research and helps poor families from all over the world to pay for treatment at the University Hospital.

During these past 50 years, more than 600,000 consultations have taken place in the hospital. Each year it provides care to 70,000 patients in one of its 35 specialties and performs 11,500 surgical operations. The University Hospital has 300 beds and a staff of 2,000 professionals.

The focal point of all the hospital’s medical activity is the patient with his or her personal dignity. Its Christian ideals imbue all of its work, and foster its professional and human values.

The doctors receive a demanding and continually updated training, and also teach at the Medical School of the University of Navarra. In their work they employ advanced technologies that include PET nuclear imaging, the Da Vinci robot, etc. The nurses and service personal number 900 employees, a number that shows that the welfare of the patient forms part of the cure. Both patients from the public health system and private patients receive medical care; in many cases the latter come through insurance plans.

The School of Medicine, the CIMA (Center for Applied Medical Research) and the Hospital permit the integration of teaching, research, and medical assistance. “Research is done through the patients and for the patients. Teaching is done via the patients and in the environment of the patients,” explains Nicolas Garcia, medical director of the center. The research work there is centered especially in four areas: treatment with stem cells, personalized medicine, predictive medicine, and bio-engineering.

For this anniversary, the hospital has opened a web page where, among other items, one can find a video with the Prelate’s homily on April 29 that we include in this issue of Romana.