A group of Lethbridge doctors is asking the province to grant their request to house a cardiac catheterization lab at Chinook Regional Hospital.
It’s a file they’ve been working on since 2010.
“Being able to acutely intervene when someone has a serious cardiac event or when they have what we think is severe cardiac disease — being able to do the actual diagnostic test is critical,” said Dr. Aaron Low on Tuesday.
He is just one of the physicians who sent an open letter to Premier Rachel Notley asking for the lab. Low said the lab would fill a gap in service that affects heart patients across the south zone.
Part of the letter read: “We do not have access to a cardiac catheterization lab locally and patients are referred to Calgary for interventional cardiac services. This includes patients who are present with a heart attack, heart failure and other acute cardiac medical emergencies.”
Low said it’s not just a few patients who are forced to travel to Calgary for these appointments.
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In a statement, the minister of health said the government’s goal is to provide Albertans with care closer to home and asked Alberta Health Services to create a report to look into the next steps.
Part of that report was published last October, with one option seeing a lab potentially added in Lethbridge next year.
The doctors are fully aware they’ve made this plea to the government with the provincial election on the horizon.
Low said they will make the same request to the UCP if the NDP is voted out of power.
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