The Sotiria Hospital for Chest Diseases was found in Athens in 1902 by Sophia Schliemann, in a wooded area of 60 hectares, offered by the Holy Petrakis Monastery. It operated as the first sanatorium for the treatment of tuberculosis of the lungs. In 1945 it housed the first Tuberculosis Clinic of the University of Athens, and from 1950 it operated as a diagnostic and therapeutic centre for all diseases of the respiratory system. As result of the gradual installation of pathological and surgical clinics, Sotiria is now a General Hospital and in fact is the largest pneumonological centre in Greece and one of the most important in Europe. The Non-profit Civil Company AEGEAS, conscious of the Hospital’s leading role in the National Health Service and particularly in handling the corona virus pandemic in 2020-2022, undertook the building and functional upgrading of two departments of critical importance for the Hospital, as well as the supplying of ultramodern medical devices. Scheduled for completion in 2024 is the creation of a new space for installing a new system of angiographic imaging.
The 2nd Pulmonology Clinic, which is situated in the east wing of the second storey of the MEGA LAIKO building, is one of the oldest units in the Hospital. Consequently, it required a complete overhaul and upgrading, in order to meet the Sotiria’s continuously increasing needs. With the donation from the Non-profit Civil Company AEGEAS a state-of-the-art ward with 30 beds and sanitary facilities, doctors’ offices and service spaces was created, which provides medical care of the highest standard.
The radical renovation and arrangement of an existing auxiliary space of the Hospital as a modern medical unit was essential prerequisite for the installation and operation of the Mixed Digital Coronary Angiography CathAI. Specifically, with the donation of the Non-profit Civil Company AEGEAS a new Haemodynamic Laboratory was set up in the 3rd University Cardiology Clinic, which includes a special thoracic room with the essential service spaces (waiting rooms, recovery room, doctors’ office, sanitary facilities). In parallel, a lift was constructed for the transfer patients and to link the Haemodynamic Department with the Cardiology Clinic. The donation was of catalytic importance for upgrading the Hospital’s medical services, as in the short period of the functioning of the Cardiac Angiography Complex and at the height of the covid-19 pandemic, ground-breaking invasive cardiology procedures have been carried out, in relation not only to coronary disease but to dealing with structural heart diseases.
