Patient pleads for centralized cardiac care

Bill Worthington believes he won’t survive heart failure, but he hopes his fight for treatment won’t be in vain.

The 73-year-old said he has been moved between hospitals, clinics and doctors for months.

Based on his months-long experience in the cardiac treatment system, he said he fully agrees with an article written by Dr. Shelley Zieroth, director of the St. Boniface Hospital Heart Function Clinic, which was published in the Free Press on May 13. It details ways the cardiac treatment system needs to be improved.

“I am pleading with our premier, Wab Kinew, and our health minister, Uzoma Asagwara, to listen very carefully to what Dr. Zieroth is telling our government about establishing a provincewide cardiac hub,” Worthington said.

He was rushed to hospital by ambulance on Feb. 22, suffering from cardiac problems.

Worthington said he has been bounced between two hospitals, been seen by a nurse practitioner and doctors and has had treatment set up, cancelled, never scheduled or not done because of communication problems between facilities and practitioners.

“It’s too late for me, but if my coming forward and sharing my experience can help generations to come, it was worth every breath I took. This, hopefully, will change the course for our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren,” he said.

“That’s what advocacy is all about, trying very hard to make changes to benefit others. Carry on bravely.”

Zieroth said the government should create a provincial cardiac hub with central referral and appointment services so patients get the care they need.

She said the province needs to make sure a diagnostic blood test, which is in less than 30 per cent of Manitoba clinics compared with 70 per cent of them across the country, is in more clinics, while also getting better access to echocardiography for diagnosis.

Molly McCracken, acting spokesperson for the Manitoba Health Coalition, said cardiac care “requires a comprehensive response and a return of the Cardiac Care Centre of Excellence, which the NDP campaigned to bring back in the last election.”

She called for the government to expedite the creation of the centre.

Christine Houde, the Heart and Stroke Foundation’s mission director in Manitoba, said a team effort is required to improve heart treatment.

“Heart and Stroke is a partner to governments, advocating for change that increases access to care for everyone and eliminates gaps so no one is left behind,” Houde said.

“We support a co-ordinated system of cardiac care because we know it works (by) bettering outcomes and quality of life for patients.”

Both Shared Health and the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority referred questions about the cardiac program to the health minister.

Asagwara said the province is working on the three areas recommended by Zieroth.

The reason the system for cardiac patients is fragmented “is the direct result of the Cardiac Centre for Excellence being dismantled by the previous government,” the minister said.

“Unfortunately, we continue to hear devastating stories of Manitobans who are paying the price for that dismantling and that poor decision making… we’re working with local experts, truly in partnership, to not only restore the (centre), but to go even further, because that’s what Manitobans deserve.”

The minister said it will take time to do that: “We’re working as quickly as we can.”

Kathleen Cook, the Tory health critic, denies the previous Progressive Conservative government did anything to dismantle the cardiac centre.

“I have asked the health minister over and over again to provide proof of that assertion, that spurious assertion, that they continue to make,” Cook said. “I can only find it in a NDP news release — I can find no other evidence that anything was dismantled.”

Cook noted the health budget went up during the previous government’s time in office, including expanding the St. Boniface emergency department.

“It’s worth noting as well that (the NDP) promised $5 million a year for cardiac care in Manitoba, and it didn’t appear in the 2024 budget, and it didn’t appear in the 2025 budget. So, I think they have some explaining to do.”

Worthington’s experience in the cardiac system began in early February, when his family doctor expressed concern about his heart and put him on heart medication while making a referral to a cardiologist.

Before Worthington could see a cardiologist, he was rushed to St. Boniface Hospital’s emergency department with atrial fibrillation and flutter.

“I described this as 28 hours of hell,” he said.

His wife Leslie said, “They said you will never get a call back from a cardiologist here. That was right from the emergency doctors.”

Worthington said he was discharged with no change in his condition, except for one more referral to a cardiologist.

He collapsed on March 5 but refused to go to a hospital because of his previous experience.

When he collapsed again the next day, an ambulance took him to Concordia Hospital, where he was stabilized. He remained there for three days.

Despite being there because of his heart, Worthington said an echocardiogram was never done and he was discharged without getting a Holter monitor to record what was happening to his heart.

When he met with a nurse practitioner at the Asper Institute in March, he was told he didn’t need a Holter monitor because they already knew he had atrial fibrillation.

A month later, Worthington saw a cardiologist at the institute, but miscommunication about when to start a blood thinner and anti-arrhythmic delayed his treatment.

“(It) has been a nightmare. I think Bill is going to die before anything is done,” Leslie Worthington said.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca