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Canadian
MP Has Heart Attack, Gets Emergency Angioplasty Former Health Minister is Treated within 35 minutes |
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February 15, 2007 -- On Tuesday, Ujjal Dosanjh, former Canadian Health Minister and currently a Member of Parliament, started feeling chest pains after attending a meeting at the House of Commons. He was having a heart attack. As other MPs rushed to his assistance, one fellow colleague and medical doctor, Carolyn Bennett, urged Mr. Dosanjh to seek immediate medical attention. An ambulance arrived, the paramedics determined he was having a heart attack and he was rushed to the Ottawa Heart Institute. He reported to the CBC that only 35 minutes from the time he complained of chest pains, he was at the hospital being treated -- and he was treated with emergency angioplasty. Emergency angioplasty is the "gold standard" for the treatment of heart attack, or acute myocardial infarction (AMI) -- but it is critically important to get to a hospital that performs angioplasty within 90 minutes, if possible. The angioplasty balloon can open the arterial blockage that is causing the heart attack, in effect stopping it in its tracks -- if this can be done before parts of the heart muscle begin to die, the effect of the heart attack can be completely reversed. While there has been much controversy of late about bare metal stents vs. drug-eluting stents, and whether or not these devices actually prolong life, in the case of a heart attack, there is no controversy. Angioplasty saves lives and there are currently major initiatives to speed up treatment and reduce what is known as "door-to-balloon" time. Mr. Dosanjh, who served as Health Minister from 2004-2006 and currently represents Vancouver South, is now characterized as having had a "mild heart attack". He plans to run in the next election and is quoted by the Vancouver Sun as stating, “It doesn’t change anything in my life.... I'm in (federal politics) for the long haul." Dosanjh said doctors expect that he'll be able to get back to all his activities, including jogging and gym workouts, within in six weeks. Coincidentally, last month Angioplasty.Org ran a report of a similar case where a man's life was saved by getting to the hospital quickly and having an angioplasty -- also in Canada. |
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