Sault Area Hospital will soon be able to perform more cardiac procedures

Though Sault Area Hospital — like all hospitals across Ontario — continues to struggle with long wait times in its emergency department, there was some good news to report at the organization’s board of directors meeting held Monday evening.

SAH will soon be able to perform more heart procedures for more patients. 

The final construction stage of the hospital’s second cardiac catheterization lab is almost done.

The second cardiac lab means that SAH will be able to complete up to 2,400 procedures each year, including coronary angiograms, angioplasty, cardiac stenting and pacemaker services.

Angioplasty, also known as percutaneous coronary intervention or PCI, is a life-saving procedure in which a catheter is inserted into the heart of a cardiac patient to open up clogged blood vessels.

SAH started performing cardiac stenting in its original, pre-expansion lab in 2018.

Construction on the second lab is scheduled to finish by the end of December and equipment delivery is expected for Jan. 4, 2024.

The lab is anticipated to become operational and treat patients beginning on Jan. 29, 2024.

“This lab gives us additional capacity so that we can do emergency and elective cases concurrently and increase volume for diagnostic and interventional procedures as well,” said Ila Watson, SAH president and CEO addressing the board at Monday’s meeting.

In other news from Monday’s SAH board meeting, it was reported that the hospital’s Physician Recruitment and Retention Program is expanding its efforts to recruit internationally trained doctors from Ireland, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

“We’ve had a very successful trip by members of our physician recruitment and retention program to Dublin, Ireland. I had an opportunity to speak with the physician recruiting manager in recent days. It was a very successful visit. They networked with over 100 physicians, 30 expressing interest in practicing here,” Watson told the board.

“There’s lots of ongoing interest and I think we should have some hope that brings some new recruits and new members to our community in the future,” Watson said.