Red Deer physician's heart attack renews calls for life-saving procedure
Andrea Huncar | CBC News | Posted: August 27, 2017 12:00 PM | Last Updated: August 27, 2017
Draft report reviewing cardiac services in Alberta due back in late autumn
When Dr. Muhammad Shafiq had a heart attack during a shift at the Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre last May the treatment he needed was 100 kilometres away.
With no STARS air ambulance available, Shafiq, 55, was transported by road to the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton. Half an hour from his destination, a second heart attack hit. He struggled to breath as the pain intensified. He had reached his limit on painkillers.
"I closed my eyes and thought that I'm going to die here," recalled the father of three, a specialist in internal medicine.
Shafiq's heart stopped beating for four minutes before he could be revived.
It's not a luxury for us, it's a necessity that we're obviously dying without - Kaniz Shafiq
"It's a blessing that he's alive," said Shafiq's wife, Kaniz. "But it didn't have to happen, the second heart attack didn't have to happen had we have had the services here."
Dr. Kym Jim, who works in the same department as Shafiq, said if Red Deer had a cardiac catheterization lab his colleague could have been spared further suffering and complications that day.
Jim has long called for advanced cardiac services in Red Deer, even organizing a rally last February attended by hundreds of supporters.
Unlike Edmonton and Calgary, Red Deer's hospital doesn't offer cardiac catheterization, a procedure in which a hollow tube is inserted through an artery to the heart to assess and unblock restricted arteries.
- Red Deer mayor calls for quicker action on cardiac cath lab for central Alberta
- Better cardiac care not coming 'any time soon' to central Alberta, health minister says
Instead, patients are given clot-busting drugs, then transferred to Calgary or Edmonton for an angiogram and possible angioplasty.
Advocates point to grim statistics to back up their calls for improved cardiac services closer to home.
"The death rate in central Alberta after heart attack is 50 per cent higher or more than it is for citizens in Edmonton and Calgary," Jim said.
But such figures and the demand for improved services are nothing new.
Cardiac death rates 70 per cent higher
Last year, CBC News obtained a December 2014 report showing cardiac death rates were up to 70 per cent higher in central Alberta than in Calgary or Edmonton.
Shafiq remembered attending a meeting with medical colleagues to lobby provincial officials for a cath lab. That was more than a decade ago.
"I did not know that one day I will be the same type of patient, or victim of this thing," he said.
The provincial government launched a review of cardiac services last spring, with a draft due back late this fall. Jim said advanced cardiac services in Red Deer would save money and more than 30 lives a year, conclusions already reached in a previous report.
"It is the standard of care when it comes to a heart attack," he said. "Citizens of central Alberta are basically having to go to Edmonton and Calgary to get services that should be delivered closer to home."
Dr Ted Braun, Alberta Health Services medical director for central and southern Alberta, said under the review the province will develop a plan to improve cardiac services in rural areas.
That includes examining the needs, benefits, costs and feasibility for regions in and around Grande Prairie, Fort McMurray, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat and Red Deer.
But it doesn't necessarily mean Red Deer will get the cath lab health-care workers and residents have long been lobbying for. Other interventional cardiac care options are also on the table.
"That's the question we're trying to answer," said Braun. "Is the need greater in Red Deer than in the other areas in the province and if so does it warrant establishing another city in the province that provides these (catheterization) services?"
Muhammad Shafiq has since returned to work at the hospital, living what he refers to as his "second life" while his wife Kaniz writes to politicians to share their story and highlight the need for catheterization services.
"It's not a luxury for us, it's a necessity that we're obviously dying without," she said.