A Pediatric Emergency Center has been inaugurated at the University of Debrecen 03. Jun. 2024

“Through the opening of the Pediatric Emergency Center, the Clinical Center has reached another outstanding milestone in the history of the development of emergency care,” said Zoltán Szabó, President of the Clinical Center of the University of Debrecen, in his welcome speech.
Professor Szabó added that the management of the University and of the Clinical Center consider the professional developments implemented in order to improve the quality and safety of emergency patient care a high priority. One of the major achievements of this dynamic series of developments is the creation of the Pediatric Emergency Center.

“The Pediatric Emergency Center will provide higher quality 21st-century conditions for centralized emergency and trauma care for children, while ensuring a top-quality environment for pediatric surgery corresponding to the forefront of European professional practice. The Center also has a symbolic significance. It will create a new clinical and academic dimension, broadening professional, educational and research opportunities and, in the future, the activities carried out here will form a bridge between adult and pediatric emergency care, providing the conditions for even more effective cooperation,” said Zoltán Szabó, President of the Clinical Center and Director of the Emergency Clinic.

György Kossa, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Count István Tisza Foundation for the University of Debrecen, underlined that the opening of the building is a milestone not only for the university, but also for the pediatric care in the city of Debrecen and the whole of Hungary.
“Debrecen’s Pediatric Emergency Center is one of five regional centers in Hungary, where pediatric trauma and pediatric emergency care will be in the hands of particularly trained specialists. The professional skills have already been available before but, with the completion of the center, the infrastructure will also be ready to provide world-class pediatric emergency care,” said György Kossa. 

Our Pediatric Emergency Center has been constructed with the help of a HUF 3 billion grant amount and more than HUF 550 million in university funding. The completion of the building is part and parcel of a national project.

“Debrecen is one of the ‘jewels’ of this project. We have spent more than 14 billion forints on infrastructure development nationwide. Of this, more than 3 billion was allocated here in Debrecen, but there were also pediatric emergency developments in the cities of Budapest, Győr, Szeged and Pécs, thanks to which a third-progressivity-level network of centers of a very high professional standard has been established in Hungary,” said State Secretary for Health Péter Takács.

Zoltán Szilvássy, Rector of the University of Debrecen, expressed his gratitude to those who had assisted in the professional cooperation for the support of the project.
“Special thanks should go to Aniko Nagy, Director General of Heim Pál National Institute of Pediatrics, who spearheaded this program. The handover of the center is indeed the realization of a nine-year-long dream of ours. It was in 2015 that we first decided to have a pediatric emergency unit at the university. This dream has now become reality,” said Zoltán Szilvássy.

Chancellor Zoltán Bács told hirek.unideb.hu that even greater efforts than ever before were necessary to make sure that the facility should be built in the form originally intended.
“I am very pleased that our Pediatric Emergency Center has by now made it to the inauguration ceremony. It is a particular pleasure and pride for me to head a unit within the University of Debrecen whose staff members can achieve what others would consider impossible. During the course of this investment process, numerous challenges had to be handled in order to realize the original dream of the national complex project of pediatric emergency and traumatology without compromise or cutbacks in Debrecen alone. To accomplish this, the university had to take serious risks and did what at first seemed impossible by investing its own funds, while the contractor had 12 months to build this world-class facility. Thanks are due to all of them," said Zoltán Bács.

Mayor of the city of Debrecen László Papp said that the center is equipped with state-of-the-art technology to provide the best possible care for children, guaranteeing the safety and health of children both in Debrecen and in the surrounding region.

According to Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and of the Board of Trustees of Count István Tisza Foundation for the University of Debrecen György Balla, the doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals working here do have the skills required for an excellent operation of the facility, having treated patients for years and even decades, and providing a high standard of care across the whole spectrum of pediatric emergency care.
The more than 2,000 square meter complex will satisfy all the modern conditions necessary for internationally recognized single-channel care in pediatric emergency, accident and pediatric surgery.

“This building complex comprises emergency outpatient wards, two operating theaters, a 15-bed pediatric surgery department and an 18-bed emergency-trauma department. All of this, together with a modern imaging diagnostics department, will help to ensure the high quality of not only pediatric emergency care, but also the top-notch functioning of the Pediatric Clinic as a whole,” said Tamás Szabó, Director of the Clinical Center for Pediatrics at UD.
The center is scheduled to become fully operational in the second half of 2024.

Press Centre - CzA