Hospital Adventista Sylvestre (Sylvestre Adventist Hospital, HAS), a Seventh-day Adventist health-care institution in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, recently reached a milestone with the completion of its 600th liver transplant. What it makes this achievement more significant, hospital leaders said, is that the institution took only eight years to reach that mark. Now HAS is the hospital that performs the most transplants in the State of Rio de Janeiro and is one of the top three for liver transplants in Brazil, leaders said.
HAS pioneered the techniques of double transplants and transplants between living donors. HAS practitioners also performed a transplant in a patient who had his internal organs inverted, a condition that affects only 0.01 percent of the world population. That patient received part of his son’s liver in a single surgery, the first performed under these conditions across the American continent.
Currently, HAS’s transplant program has a team of 20 professionals, including surgeons, hepatologists, and anesthesiologists. According to the team’s coordinator, surgeon Eduardo Fernandes, their goal is to perform an average of 100 transplants per year, to further consolidate the institution’s reputation across the state.
A Church Within the Hospital Walls
The spiritual support provided to patients and their families is also one of the distinctive marks of the institution. Since 2014, the Lugar de Paz (Place of Peace) project provides Saturday (Sabbath) morning services with the participation of hospital employees. Services are open to patients and their families. On Saturday afternoons, church members taking part in the initiative visit to pray and read the Bible with patients.
According to HAS senior chaplain Dener Rodrigo, spiritual support is provided to patients even when they are discharged. “When they leave, they get a kit consisting of a Bible, a book, a Bible-study DVD, and a booklet with information about the Adventist Church,” he said.
About HAS
Silvestre Adventist Hospital opened in 1942 in the Cosme Velho neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro, as part of the network of Seventh-day Adventist health-care institutions around the world. In addition to its general hospital, HAS manages a health network in Rio de Janeiro (Silvestre Adventist Health Network), which includes medical centers, diagnostic centers, and clinical and pathology laboratories.
As part of the Adventist network, HAS promotes free community initiatives to assist local underserved populations. HAS initiatives also include programs in professional training, through which the institution offers free annual courses for health professionals. The program trains on average 30 nursing technicians per year.
In February 2019, HAS celebrated the opening of a revamped surgical hospitalization ward. “The latest improvements follow a long line of commitments to deliver the best care possible,” leaders said.
The original version of this story was posted on the South American Division Portuguese news site.
