Hospital Universitario La Paz, Spain

SPAIN

The Hospital Universitario La Paz is a public hospital, dependent on the Community of Madrid, located in the north of Madrid, which provides health care according to the census for around 500.000 inhabitants, however a wide number of complex patients are referred nationally for diagnosis and treatment.

The General Hospital was opened in July 1964 and in 1970 it became a teaching hospital in collaboration with Universidad Autonoma of Madrid. An important landmark in the history of this hospital was the creation of the transplant program in 1984. Since its opening, its physiognomy has changed and grown to become the great hospital complex we know today, with an infrastructure of more than 235.000 m², consisting of a network of twenty buildings and four large hospitals: the General Hospital, the Maternal Hospital, the Children's Hospital and the Hospital of Traumatology and Rehabilitation. In 2005 the Hospital Cantoblanco and in 2013 the Hospital Carlos III were integrated in the network.

The Hospital Universitario La Paz is recognised as a centre of reference and health excellence, a recognition that extends both to its healthcare activity and to its teaching and research activity. The Children Hospital is the only centre in Spain which counts with all the medical and surgical subspecialties to take care of paediatric patients. The Children Hospital is centre of national reference for twenty-five pathologies, amongst which six concern the Ophthalmology Department: Congenital Malformations of the ocular globe and eyelids, Extraocular Paediatric Tumors (rabdomiosarcoma), Intraocular Paediatric Tumors (retinoblastoma), Advanced Premature Retinopathy, Paediatric Penetrant Keratoplasty and Bullous Epidermolysis.

In order to understand the dimensions of this large hospital, it is necessary to bear in mind its volume of healthcare activity. In 2015, the Hospital Universitario La Paz treated more than 46,000 patients in its hospitalization plants and more than 218,000 patients in its emergency services. It has attended more than one million outpatient consultations and has performed 55,000 surgeries in its facilities, some of great technical complexity such as the different types of transplants that are performed in this centre.

To reach this volume of activity the Hospital Universitario La Paz has a team of around 7,400 professionals, a large infrastructure and all the necessary high-tech equipment and diagnostic tests. It provides a multidisciplinary approach for a vast number of diseases, works hand to hand with the Genetic and Molecular Diseases Department and IdiPaz (biomedical investigation organisation).