CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A multi-million dollar donation by the Dobson Family Foundations, Las Aguilas Enterprises and individual Dobson family members will complete the construction of the Heart Center at Driscoll Children's Hospital.
The Heart Center's new procedural suite includes two operating rooms, two cardiac catheterization labs, along with a 10 bed cardiac ICU and 25 new patient beds for the center.
Levi del Castillo, a 7-month-old, is recovering from surgery at the center. His mother, Johana del Castillo described how her son was diagnosed with a heart condition when he was a new born.
"When he was born at the hospital they heard a murmur, so they brought in a cardiologist during my stay and they diagnosed him," del Castillo said. "It is my first child. It was very hard. It was very hard because when you deliver you don't think about. You just want your child to be healthy right?"
"He was born with a heart condition, a hole in his heart, and a narrowing in the passage of blood from the heart to the lungs," his doctor, Dr. Stephen Langley said. "A condition we call 'tetralogy of Fallot.' And I operated on him last week, or the week before and he recovered in our Cardiac Intensive Care Unit and went home three days after the surgery."
Dr. Langley is the chief of pediatric cardiac surgery and medical director of the Driscoll Heart Center. He said the addition will allow the hospital to care for 35 children instead of the 12 they have room for now in the center.
"It is hundreds of operations that we do a year and we see thousands but we can double that with this gift," he said.
The multi-million dollar gift finishes the expansion the hospital started a year ago.
Dr. Langley said he's amazed by this type of support.
"I think it reflects their belief in us and the organization of Driscoll and the Driscoll Heart Center, so it's a tremendously exciting time for us as we're able to expand and look after more children."
For patients and their families like Johana, this hospital and its staff means a lot.
"When you think people are not paying attention, like we are as parents, you take the time to go clean the baby, just go see why he's crying. Anything like, it does help."
The Driscoll Heart Center expansion should be completed this summer.