Williams talks about U.S. heart surgery

Danny Williams, the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, has broken his silence on his decision to undergo heart surgery in the U.S., and the controversy it caused.

Williams, in an interview that aired Monday night on NTV, a private television station in St. John's, said that his communications staff warned him the decision would possibly create a fuss.

"I just said, 'Look, our communications plan here is going to be quite simple: This is my heart, it's my health and it's my choice.' "

Since word leaked out in early February that Williams, 60, needed heart surgery and would be travelling outside the country to get it, his office refused to specify what the procedure was, or where it was being done. His personal privacy was cited as the reason for the secrecy.

CBC News requested an interview with Williams, but his office refused, saying the premier wouldn't be talking to the CBC about his health.

The premier said in the NTV interview that during a regular checkup about a year ago, his doctors in St. John's discovered that he had a leaky heart valve. After some tests, it was confirmed to be mitral valve regurgitation. Williams said his cardiologist told him that his condition was moderate and he might eventually have to have it repaired or replaced.

However, just before Christmas, doctors discovered during another checkup that the condition had progressed to severe. Williams said his doctors recommended that it be repaired as soon as possible.

"The mitral valve is a special surgery," he said in the interview broadcast Monday evening. "It's not a typical open heart surgery where your arteries are replaced ... so, they recommended that I look at going outside the province ... what was ultimately done to me, the surgery that I eventually got ... was not offered to me in Canada."

The surgery was performed at Mount Sinai Medical Centre in Miami, Fla. The decision to travel to a hospital outside of Canada for the surgery sparked a huge debate about health care on both sides of the border.

Williams, who is recovering at his condo in Sarasota, Fla.,  said people shouldn't take his decision to seek medical help outside the country as a reflection on health care in Newfoundland and Labrador. He said he has the "utmost confidence" in the province's health-care system.

"It's a bum rap … for someone to try to turn around and say, 'You know, Williams doesn't have confidence in his own health-care system because he had to leave the province.' Well, I had to leave the province because it was recommended to me by my own doctors that for this particular type of surgery I should leave the province."

Williams said it was doctors in St. John's who discovered and diagnosed the problem.

"They told me I had it. If they hadn't discovered it, I would've dropped in a heap one day and that would've been the end of it."

Williams said he believes that most people in the province support his decision to seek medical help elsewhere.

"Ninety-nine per cent of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians actually get it and they understand that there's a certain right to privacy," he said.

Williams said he is still recovering, but the doctors in Miami told him that his arteries are "as clean as a whistle," and that he has "the heart of a 40-year-old."

Williams's office has said he is expected to be back on job early in March.