Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Give needed funding to heart program

Re: “ ‘Exceptional medical talent’ at RJH,” column, Feb. 15. I was pleased to read the column praising the heart program at Royal Jubilee Hospital.

Re: “ ‘Exceptional medical talent’ at RJH,” column, Feb. 15.

I was pleased to read the column praising the heart program at Royal Jubilee Hospital.

As a heart patient, I can attest to the competence of the cardiologists, surgeons, nurses and technologists at the Jubilee hospital. We are indeed fortunate to have such a first-class service available to us on Vancouver Island.

While I am grateful for the service I have received, in some ways I am becoming a robotic person. Three bypasses, a valve replacement, four stents and a pacemaker, all of it done at RJH. And now I have just been assessed for what is referred to as a TAVI (transcatheter aortic valve implant), a relatively new procedure available at only a few hospitals in Canada.

Unfortunately, the B.C. government in conjunction with Island Health is limiting the number of these procedures that can be done in any given year. I find the rationing of such a vital lifesaving procedure incredibly wrong. A TAVI is hardly an elective procedure; no one wants one unless they really need it. Furthermore, the only alternative is open-heart surgery, which can’t be less expensive.

Excellence should be rewarded, not restrained. I sincerely hope that the heart program at RJH receives the funding it needs and continues to thrive so that lives can be saved.

Don Thomson

Cobble Hill