An institution of scientific development, determined to innovate, with a very Cuban project, such as the hip and knee prosthesis; a center that every day feeds about 400 workers with an offer that always has proteins and in which the families of the patients do not have to carry the food; a hospital that built an organoponic that should provide more than 20 tons of products annually and is cultivated by its staff, including top surgeons...
This and much more was confirmed by the First Secretary of the Party Central Committee and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, at the Fructuoso Rodríguez Orthopedic Teaching Hospital, where he visited yesterday, together with the member of the Political Bureau and Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz, and the main authorities of Havana and the municipality of Plaza de la Revolución.
Dr. Roberto Balmaseda Manent, general director of the center, speaks serenely but enthusiastically about the prostheses, of which he is one of the main authors. They are manufactured in collaboration with the FAR enterprise system, to solve hip fractures in the elderly, and with very good results.
This is, he explained, part of a great project of what we want to achieve in this hospital, which is to turn it into a closed-cycle center; in other words, to have the research, development, clinical trials, to have the devices designed and built in a company, to sell them and also to offer the service in other countries, in such a way that we can feed back and continue to develop.
The dream of our group, added the prominent orthopedic and traumatologist, is to reach the level of a scientific center; and we have already presented the documentation of a development and innovation unit and we hope to link up with other institutions.
Our country -he clarified- needs at least 5,000 of these prostheses annually, and each one is worth between 1,500 and 2,000 dollars on the international market, plus the instruments.
INSIDE THE HOSPITAL
Fructuoso Rodríguez provides expert assistance in Orthopedics, Traumatology and related specialties, and develops a huge teaching task with undergraduate, postgraduate and doctorate degrees, while demanding permanent improvement from its professionals.
Among its research projects, in addition to those of partial and total hip and knee prostheses, are those of technological innovation in external bone fixation for intertrochanteric fractures; the promotion of salutogenic coping styles in patients with osteomyelitis; and an intervention aimed at nursing care for the identification of family abuse of the elderly.
Its development and innovation unit, which involves qualified personnel dedicated to research, also involves specialists from the University of Havana, the Union of Military Industries, Citma and Cecmed.
The center has 120 beds, most of them in service and the rest under repair. It has been gradually rehabilitating the rooms, three of which are already in optimal conditions. It maintains a dynamic of surgical operations and treatments that shorten the stay of patients in order to increase bed rotation, and its on-call staff attends between 100 and 150 people per day.
EVERYONE HELPING
Institutions of the FAR and its business system have been participating in the repair of the hospital and the recovery and replacement of its technologies, including the contribution of specialists in intensive care, anesthesia and resuscitation, engineers in logistics and information technology, and other specialized personnel.
In addition to Minsap, other state entities have been helping, such as Etecsa, and several non-state mipymes grouped around a state mipyme of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Investment, which have been repairing the rooms and operating rooms at no cost to the hospital, including hydro-sanitary systems, carpentry, painting...
The food supply has improved notably due to the weekly contribution made by the mipymes, with products such as chicken, minced meat, rice...; in addition to the work they have done in the refrigeration areas, the cold room and the start-up of the generators with state-of-the-art technology.
“Many institutions are helping us, and we hope, before the end of 2025, to have concluded the capital repairs, in order to have a hospital in the best conditions to serve our people,” said Dr. Balmaseda Manent.
Its organoponic is a jewel in Fructuoso, with covered cultivation houses and open areas, built in the moats of the Castillo del Príncipe, thanks to the support of Minfar, which implied an arduous work of cleaning, rehabilitation and construction of flower beds and other technical requirements, including the irrigation system.
ENCOURAGING EXPERIENCE
What you are achieving here is very encouraging, said the First Secretary of the Party Central Committee and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, to hospital workers, whom he congratulated for the results they are achieving.
Here it is demonstrated, he said, that times may be complicated, but they can be overcome, and they are overcome when you work intelligently. And that same commitment you have made to innovation is obviously going to allow the Orthopedics specialty to reach a qualitatively superior moment.
This -he added- is the path we must all take; and you are an example of what one says when one goes to the provinces, that while some groups complain about the lack of resources, others get down to work. When there is a different leadership - Díaz-Canel reflected - things move forward, they do not stop, they even manage to be better in more difficult times.
