April 2010:
Operating Room 7 – Equipped with Modern Endoscopy Tower
Government’s Second Economic Stimulus Package Facilitates Building Work
In the years 2007 and 2008 the central operating tract (rooms 1-6) was remodeled, extended and renovated, requiring concerted efforts on the part of the DHZB staff, the participation of numerous building firms, and organization with the precision of military logistics; Berlin’s first hybrid operating room was opened. Now it has been the turn of OR 7, the so-called emergency operating room.
“Thanks to the government’s second economic stimulus package, this building work could recently be started and efficiently completed,” reports the DHZB's technical director, Jörg Peter Schmahl. OR 7 is now fitted with highly modern technical equipment comparable to that of the central operating tract and also has one of the most recently developed endoscopic “towers” (cost: €700,000), which is used for endoscopy, bronchsoscopy and heart muscle biopsy (tissue collection).
The special tube-like systems (endoscopes) can be used together with an array of optical instruments, cold light sources, equipment for rinsing and suction, and forceps and nooses to secure and incise tissue. This is necessary for endoscopic examinations of the bronchial system and the lungs, and for endoscopic procedures. These include stent implantation, biopsy with local anesthetic (for example for monitoring after heart transplantation) or during mechanical ventilation, the removal by suction of bronchial secretion in mechanically ventilated patients, and others. Transmission of the endoscopic images is by state-of-the-art high definition technology. As Schmahl explained, the building work to be covered by the second economic stimulus package also includes the installation of a central air conditioning system in the operating tract that will reduce energy needs; further, the cardiological outpatient department will gain an extra office and the Marfan center will move into its own consulting room.
