On May 30, 2017, Dr. Muhammad Shafiq said his first life ended. His wife and many others in Red Deer are upset because they say it didn’t have to.
Shafiq was working at the Red Deer hospital on that fateful day. He was finishing his rounds.
As he spoke to his last patient, Shafiq said: “I felt something in my heart. I was a little dizzy. I was nauseous. The pain was getting worse and worse and I was unable to breathe properly.”
He was rushed down the hall to the hospital’s emergency room. He knew exactly what was happening. Any doubt was erased the moment he saw his electrocardiogram.
“Looking at the ECG from a distance, I figured that there was a big-time heart attack going on,” Shafiq said.
READ MORE: Red Deer physicians fear patient care is suffering in central Alberta
Although he was in a hospital in Alberta’s third largest city, Shafiq could not get the treatment he needed in Red Deer. He was stabilized, put in an ambulance and sent to the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton. That facility has access to a cardiac catheterization lab.
The procedure, available in Calgary and Edmonton, sees a doctor inject a tube into the groin, leg or arm. It is pushed through an artery into the heart where it’s expanded, removing a blockage.
As Shafiq’s ambulance raced through Leduc, the pain in his chest returned. He was suffering a second heart attack. It was worse than the first one.
“I was crying like a baby,” Shafiq said. “The pain was — I can’t describe it to be honest. It was too much.”
At the hospital, Shafiq recalled thinking it was too late.
“At that time, I though, ‘I am going to die and I am going to see my creator.’ Thank God I survived. I’m back to normal. This is my second life.”
Kaniz Shafiq is frustrated that the cardiac catheterization lab that helped save her husband wasn’t in the Red Deer hospital.
“It’s really painful. I don’t want anybody else to go through what my husband went through simply because we don’t have the services here.”
This is not a new fight.
Dr. Kym Jim has been pushing for the lab for the last decade. He said Shafiq was one of the lucky ones.
A recent study suggests at least 50 per cent more people from central Alberta die or become disabled from a heart attack, compared to patients in Edmonton or Calgary.
READ MORE: Alberta Budget 2017 promises new hospital for Edmonton, nothing for Red Deer hospital
Jim attributes much of that discrepancy to Red Deer’s lack of a cardiac catheterization lab.
“Central Alberta has now reached critical mass, in terms of patient population, to be able to support some of those programs,” Jim said.
Alberta Health Services said a review is underway looking at the feasibility of labs in hospitals including Red Deer’s and Grande Prairie’s.
That report is slated to be complete by late fall but there is no timeline for a decision.
“We obviously need space and infrastructure. We need operating dollars. So it is a very complex decision making process to get this right,” said Dr. Ted Braun, with Alberta Health Services.
After 10 years of asking, doctors and patients are growing tired of waiting.
“Projects have been recently announced that were nowhere on the radar of Alberta Health Services when Red Deer had been on the list for the last decade. And those projects are now prioritized ahead of Red Deer.”
READ MORE: Red Deer hospital unveils new obstetrical operating rooms
Kaniz Shafiq is even more blunt.
“We need to move beyond perpetual discussion,” she said. “We need decisive, fruitful action and we need it immediately.”
Advocates for the new, roughly $10-million facility are planning to keep pushing for a cath lab at a rally in Red Deer scheduled for next Sunday.
Comments