THUNDER BAY -- The region's hospital is one step closer to offering heart surgery, though there are not yet any firm timelines or funding commitments.
Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins was in the city on Thursday, where he announced the province is supporting a proposal to provide cardiovascular services at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre.
When implemented, the hospital will have an expanded vascular surgery program and the capability to perform cardiac procedures such as heart bypass surgeries and aortic valve replacements.
That will allow about 1,000 Northwestern Ontario patients a year, who would otherwise have to travel, to receive treatment in Thunder Bay.
“Quite frankly, I was surprised this level of service wasn’t already available in Thunder Bay. It deserves to be here,” Hoskins said in a media scrum following the announcement.
“The quality of the care that you’re receiving in so many areas is of this standard...I understand when an individual has to travel to get health care the physical, emotional and financial challenges that can present to them and their families.”
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Dr. Mark Henderson, the hospital’s executive vice-president of patient services, said with the new programs, the hospital would be able to treat about 90 per cent of cardiovascular cases.
“I know from my own patients telling me they love the service they get in Southern Ontario but they hate the travel,” he said.
The hospital and government, along with the North West Local Health Integration Network, will work together on a plan for the addition.
The announcement comes months after hospital executives submitted a proposal to the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.
While Hoskins said the announcement is a guarantee those procedures will be done in Thunder Bay, he did not provide any specific details about how much the provincial government was planning to spend to make it a reality or when people can expect the programs to be available.
Though when he was asked whether the enhancements can be expected within the next five years, Hoskins stopped short of going that far.
“I think we’ve pressed the go button today. On the vascular side, I suspect we’re going to move forward with the expansion quite rapidly and the cardiac is going to follow quite shortly behind,” he said.
“I’m reluctant to give timelines because usually I like to do things as quickly and responsibly as possible.”
Thunder Bay-Atikokan MPP Bill Mauro, who has been championing the cause for more than a decade, said the lack of a dollar figure or guaranteed opening date shouldn’t be seen as a signs of lack of promise.
It builds on the introduction of an angioplasty unit nearly 10 years ago.
“The minister was unequivocal in his commitment to the cardiac program right here in Thunder Bay. It’s going to happen,” Mauro said.
“There’s some capital work that needs to be contemplated, plans that need to be approved with the involvement of the LHIN and that work is already underway.”
Mauro added the hospital, which frequently faces gridlock challenges, said the new additions will be implemented in a way that doesn’t result in more patient overcrowding.
“That capital piece, will in all likelihood, accommodate the spaces necessary not only for the work that needs to be done but for the enhanced number of patients who will remain on this site to get that service,” he said.
Henderson said he anticipates the facility having to launch a fundraising initiative larger than their recently completed $5.9 million Exceptional Cancer Care campaign to partner with the provincial funding.
