Silvia Marinho Martins et al. Cassandra Barros Correia de Moura Maria da Glória Aureliano de Melo Cavalcanti Cristina de Fátima Velloso Carrazzone … Carolina de Araújo Medeiros Wilson Oliveira Junior
Where it all began
The history of the Chagas Disease and Heart Failure Outpatient Clinic of the Prof. Luiz Tavares Cardiology Emergency Unit of Pernambuco, at Universidade de Pernambuco (UPE), began in August 1987 at Hospital Universitário Oswaldo Cruz (HUOC). When it was created, in 1884, this hospital worked mainly providing care for patients with infectious and parasitic diseases. Since that time, the hospital worked with diseases that later became known as unassisted (nowadays named and classified as neglected diseases by the World Health Organization, WHO) and became a breeding ground for the inauguration of the Chagas Disease Outpatient Clinic.
In 1964, HUOC became a teaching hospital and started receiving medical students from Faculdade de Ciências Médicas de Pernambuco. At this moment, the hospital became the first referral center for clinical and surgical cardiology in the state, being the main and only public emergency unit exclusively dedicated to this specialty. The emergency demand was massive and various sectored wards were established for treating and caring for patients with heart disease. Among them, the myocardiopathies and heart failure ward, in the late 1970s, was coordinated by Professor Wilson de Oliveira Jr. In general, patients arrived at the cardiology emergency unit with decompensated heart failure, being cared for and referred to the myocardiopathy ward (). Once compensated, these patients were discharged without systematic outpatient care, which resulted in various new hospitalizations. Many of these patients had chagasic heart failure.
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