Stroke care at King Hamad University Hospital
Stroke is medical emergency requiring urgent medical aid and is the most common cause of death after coronary artery disease. Further, the fact that the disease can cripple a person and even push him to a persistent vegetative state necessitates the timely identification and management within the ‘golden hours’ of its onset.
At KHUH, we have a dedicated stroke team, encompassing Doctors, Technicians and Nurses working round the clock with an evidence based protocol for acute stroke management, ensuring the best patient outcomes. The system works with a conjoined collaboration of varied departments in the hospital including the Emergency, Radiology, Internal medicine, Neurology, ICU, Anaesthesia and Laboratory. Our aim is to provide adequate patient care within the ‘golden hour’ and the stroke team responds promptly on receipt of "Code Stroke". Such a rapid action is very vital for a disease like stroke where even the time for blink of an eye has immense significance.
The Clinical Stroke assessment is done within EMD. In cases of stroke suspicion, time lag is avoided with the activation of Stroke Code via overhead paging, in addition to personal alert for the team members. The patient is stabilised with primary care in the due time and relevant laboratory tests are done with immediate effect. All suspected acute stroke patients are subjected to undergo neuroimaging including CT/CTA and MRI/MRA to facilitate the diagnosis of affected area of brain. This is done in time efficient manner ensuring that the next ‘on scan’ shall be the stroke patient. All eligible patients are administered with thrombolytic medication.
Further, we have a dedicated interventional team to provide endovascular therapy/mechanical thrombectomy, under the guidance of Dr.Wael Hamed Abd Al Hamid, who has a good expertise over interventional radiology and reputable clinical background of 25 years. The mechanical thrombectomy is a potential treatment for occlusion of large cerebral arteries like middle cerebral artery. When the procedure is performed within 12 hours of onset of symptoms, it significantly reduces the morbidity and disability resulting from Stroke. Further the radiology department of our hospital is equipped with two angiography suites; providing diagnostic and therapeutic treatments using advanced minimally invasive techniques with image guidance. Our Hospital is one of the only units of this kind in the Kingdom of Bahrain, equipped with cutting edge technology and human expertise.
