Wainfleet heart attack survivor & family say keep Emergency Room in Port hospital
Amanda Street
Published on
Aug 01, 2008
Lynn McCormick was at her brother's house on Clarence Street when it happened.
On July 5, the Wainfleet woman had a heart attack. Her brother, a firefighter, noticed the symptoms immediately. They rushed her to Port Colborne General Hospital's emergency department. They arrived less than five minutes later.
When she arrived at the hospital she was in critical condition. It took doctors more than two hours to stabilize her condition. She was then transferred to Welland County Hospital.
It would have taken 15 minutes more to take McCormick to Welland's emergency department. By 2013, Port Colborne residents will no longer have an emergency room at their hospital if a plan created by the Niagara Health System is approved.
The health system was ordered to prepare a hospital improvement plan by the Local Health Integration Network, the board which governs hospitals. Included in the plan is the removal of emergency and surgical services from Port Colborne General and Douglas Memorial in Fort Erie. Under the NHS plan, emergency services will be operated out of Niagara Falls, St. Catharines and Welland.
Within five years Port Colborne and Wainfleet residents will have to drive to Welland for emergency care.
"We were told if we had waited any longer she may not have made it," said Lynn's husband Tim. "If we had to go to Welland it may not have turned out the same way."
From Welland, Lynn was transferred to Hamilton General where a stint was placed in her artery. She is recovering at home in Wainfleet. Tim fears something could happen again.
If there is no ER in Port Colborne, his greatest fear is losing his wife to an unfortunate decision by the NHS.
"It was Port Colborne General that saved my wife," he said. "If I lost her because there was no service here I would be furious. I am furious they are even considering this."
When Lynn arrived at Port Colborne General her heart was near flat lining, Tim said. Her heart beat was nothing more than a little ripple.
Two and half hours later she was finally ready for transport.
"I don't want to know what would have happened if it weren't for Port Colborne General," he said. "I don't think she would have made it."
While the nearest emergency department to Port Colborne will be Welland in 2013, the NHS has plans to consolidate services across its six hospitals. Cardiac cases will be handled out of the new hospital in St. Catharines, which will include a regional cardiac catheterization services. It will take about 40 minutes for a Port Colborne resident to drive to the new hospital site.
Right now, heart attack patients in Niagara suffering from a clotted artery have two options. They can have clot buster drugs administered at hospital emergency wards, where there can be delays when those departments get backlogged, or be transported to Hamilton where they can get shunts or balloons surgically implanted to break up the clogged artery.
Statistics show that death rates from heart attacks rise dramatically the longer it takes to clear a clotted artery -- for every additional 30 minutes before treatment, death rates climb 10 per cent.
The NHS justifies the closure of emergency services in Port Colborne by stating that most cases are not critical and can be handled by a family physician. By 2013 Port Colborne General will become a "vibrant community health centre" with a family health team. The focus will shift from 24-hour emergency care to 14-hour prompt care and then to primary care.
Dr. Maynard Luterman, site chief of the southern tier emergency medicine, said 97 per cent of visits to Port Colborne's ER are between the hours of 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. After 10, he said there is, on average, one patient per hour. And of those patients, he said only one is critically ill.
"In a perfect world, everyone gets what they want," he said. "What we have doesn't work anymore."
Dr. George Rungi, chair of Port Colborne General, Port Colborne said the lack of specialized equipment and doctors makes Port Colborne's ER a prompt care unit.