Feeling the pulse: province considers legislation to protect St. B cardiac centre

The Manitoba government is considering legislation to protect cardiac care services at St. Boniface Hospital.

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara made the remarks Friday, during a news conference promoting $22.1 million the government earmarked to re-establish a cardiac centre of excellence.

“Our government is committed to not only making this historic investment, but protecting it for generations of Manitobans to come,” Asagwara said, noting the province was exploring options with legal counsel.

The St. Boniface hub is Manitoba’s sole place for adult in-patient cardiac care. A new rapid cardiac assessment unit will open July 1. It will allow patients to be seen earlier by a specialist and will expand cardiac capacity by 19 beds.

The funding was announced in March as part of the provincial government’s 2026 budget.

The program was once considered among the best in Canada. It had below-average rates of patient mortality and readmission after surgery, a 2017 Canadian Institute for Health Information report found.

The New Democrats and former staff have said cuts when the Progressive Conservatives were in power negatively impacted the care centre, as did the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Alan Menkis, who was the cardiac team’s medical director from 2004 to 2016, has been calling for a cardiac care centre governance framework, a better structure for accountability and academic protections.

“It’s welcome,” Menkis said of the funding. “What comes next… (is) protections that would ensure that the program is not vulnerable in the future to the same pressures that produced a decline over the past eight to 10 years.”

Menkis has mentioned the CancerCare Manitoba Act as an example in the past. That became legislation in 2001.

The retiree, who still teaches cardiac surgery at the hospital, has offered to help with a new structure and said he’s not tied to CancerCare’s model.

“I would leave open what that structure looks like, but clearly it has to be something that is mandated, if not legislated,” Menkis said.

“It has to be not only adaptable, but it has to withstand the changes of government.”

Asagwara said they’ve also discussed governance models with the St. Boniface team. There is no timeline for the move as Asagwara said “there’s no finish line” on strengthening the space.

Staff cardiologists were quick to volunteer for shifts for the opening of the unit, said Dr. Anita Soni, cardiologist medical specialty lead at Cardiac Sciences Manitoba, inside St. Boniface Hospital.

“As a group, we talked and said, ‘This is something we need to do,’” Soni said. “What we want to do is bring… patients up to the cardiac assessment unit to free up the emergency room.”

Employees will also cover shifts for a new cardiac consult role, Soni said.

The hospital staffs seven to eight cardiologists daily; they’re available to consult 24-7. However, a four-hour stretch — between 8 a.m. and noon — was particularly difficult as cardiologists were busy consulting, looking after patients on wards and working on discharges, Soni said.

The funding will cover another cardiologist to be present in the ER during that morning stretch.

“This was to help any backlog from overnight and keep the flow going,” Soni said.

The daughter of a woman who died in the St. B ER after having a heart attack while waiting to see a doctor expressed concern the new position wouldn’t be staffed 24-7.

“(Cardiologists) can save lives and spare other families from the pain mine now carries,” said Morgan Ross, whose mother, Stacey, died in January.

Program expansions without hiring is “punishing” to staff, said Jason Linklater, president of the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals.

“It becomes a situation where you end up losing people,” Linklater said. “It’s a vicious cycle that is only going to get worse if it’s not addressed.”

Cardiology technologists and perfusionists — who operate equipment such as heart-lung machines — have been understaffed for years, Linklater said. Other provinces, such as Saskatchewan, have incentives to entice health-care staff, he noted.

The Saskatchewan Health Authority offered a $100,000 incentive to perfusionists who agreed to work five years in Regina, a job posting showed Friday.

“All the cardiologists are going to be working a little harder,” Soni said. “If we need to, we will recruit new cardiologists.”

Current hospital employees, including respiratory therapists and nurses, will staff the centre. It won’t lessen services in other units, a government spokesperson said.

The new funding will go “a long way” to ensure cardiac services keep up with Manitoba’s population and retain medical professionals, Dr. Nichelle Desilets, Doctors Manitoba’s president, said in a statement.

At least $7.1 million is reserved for cardiac-specific beds; there are 14 new and five reassessed.

Funding will also cover more catheterization and electrophysiology procedures, among other things.

The hub has “clinical pathways” in other communities. The goal is to keep patients as close to home as possible, coming only to St. Boniface when needed, Soni said.

Manitobans may be sent to Edmonton or Toronto when needing a complex procedure that can’t be done in the province. Surgery development in Manitoba is ongoing, Soni said.

Patients from northwestern Ontario and Nunavut also visit the centre.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com