During February’s Heart Month, the regional cardiac care program at Southlake Regional Health Centre has received a donation of nearly $1.3 million from Simcoe County.
“Southlake may be located outside our borders, but it serves as a vital regional health care centre for our communities and our residents,” Simcoe County Warden George Cornell said at the announcement at the Newmarket hospital today.
“In fact, in 2018, Simcoe residents visited Southlake’s emergency department 20,000 times. Almost 6,000 Simcoe County residents were admitted to Southlake for care or treatment. More than 700 Simcoe County babies were born at this hospital. County of Simcoe paramedics transported more than 3,000 patients to this facility, and 78 lives were saved as part of the new STEMI bypass program, which brought the patients directly to Southlake,” Cornell said.
“Residents cared for and healed, lives saved and new residents brought into the world, that all happens right here in this amazing facility. We’re pleased to support Southlake and help ensure that our region has access to innovative, world-class health-care services.”
The $1.288-million investment, which will be directed to the redevelopment of three interventional cardiology suites, is the first of a 15-year $45-million commitment that the County has made to the seven hospitals that comprise the Simcoe County Hospital Alliance, Cornell added.
The state-of-the-art suites are used to treat patients who are experiencing heart attacks, as well as for diagnostic tests and minimally invasive procedures to repair and replace heart valves.
The suites enable doctors to treat heart ailments using tools at the end of small tubes, instead of opening the chest to access the heart, reducing the amount of time it takes to perform the procedure and the amount of time a patient needs to recover from the procedure.
The tubes – called catheters – are guided into the heart from a small incision in the groin, or occasionally near the collarbone, with the help of x-ray video images of the heart.
The $5.7-million redevelopment of the interventional cath labs will upgrade equipment that is 15 to 20 years old, said Jessie Playter Boogaard, Southlake’s manager of business and quality, regional cardiac care program.
While The Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care funds most of a hospital’s operational cost, it does not cover the cost of replacing equipment. To update equipment and offer more advanced services, Southlake must rely on donations.
The nine-month redevelopment project will replace suites that had been in operation since 1999 and have seen more than 75,000 patients, almost 30,000 of whom were from Simcoe County, Playter Boogaard said.
“To meet the changing needs of our patients and continue to offer more specialty services, there is no doubt that we need community partners like Simcoe County,” Southlake President and CEO Arden Krystal said at the announcement. “And over the years, Simcoe County has committed millions of dollars in support of capital projects at Southlake.”
The County has now donated more than $6.4 million since 2004, investing in health care capacity and greater access to Southlake’s regional oncology and cardiology services, Cornell said.
“Past investments have ensured patients from York Region and south Simcoe County have access to state-of-the-art cancer care and radiation treatment closer to home. Funds have been used to equip our Stronach Regional Cancer Centre with the latest in advanced technologies and equipment, bringing together sophisticated cancer technology with expert, patient-focused services and supportive care,” Krystal said.
The updated suites will enable Southlake’s regional cardiac care program to continue offering more advanced specialty care to the more than one million people who live in York Region, Simcoe County and Muskoka.
The Southlake cardiac care program has several partnerships in place that serve Simcoe residents, Playter Boogaard said, including one with Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH) in Barrie to develop a “two-site one-heart model” to provide diagnostic testing, with patients receiving specialized cardiac care at Southlake.
As well, the STEMI bypass program, a partnership between Simcoe County Paramedics, RVH, and Stevenson Memorial Hospital, allows patients who are experiencing heart attack-type symptoms to bypass their home hospital and be transported directly to Southlake for expedited angioplasty procedures, she said.
The program has seen more than 5,000 patients treated for heart attacks, more than 1,300 from Simcoe, including the first patient. The nearest other hospitals providing STEMI are in Toronto and Brampton.
From 1994 to 2016, the County provided more than $62 million to area hospitals, and with an additional commitment of $45 million from 2017 to 2031, it will have provided a grand total of $107 million to area hospitals, said Cornell to applause from the hospital staff gathered in the Southlake auditorium for the announcement.
“We understand that the strength of our hospitals directly correlates to the strength of our communities and the quality of life of our residents. With an aging population, growing communities and increasingly more visitors to our area, we know that our hospitals need the support of our municipalities and other levels of government to address the growing demands on their services. That’s why we invest in our hospitals like Southlake.”
Procedures completed in Southlake’ suites include:
- Minimally invasive procedures to replace the aortic valve without open-heart surgery, called transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI)
- Minimally invasive procedures to repair the mitral valve without open-heart surgery
- Balloon angioplasty and implanting stents to open up arteries in the heart following a heart attack
- Diagnostic tests, including tests for heart failure patients and patient who have difficult to diagnose heart issues
The Simcoe County Hospital Alliance is comprised of Collingwood General and Marine Hospital, Georgian Bay General Hospital, Orillia Soldiers' Memorial Hospital, Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre, Southlake Regional Health Centre, Stevenson Memorial Hospital and Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care.
