N.L. cardiac catheterization lab gets upgrade, lowering procedure waitlist

The Health Sciences Centre's cardiac catheterization lab has just completed a major upgrade. It’s been a makeover five years in the making, and officials say the waitlist is already improving.

"You can see it's a nice bright space, it's… I wouldn't say it's inviting, I guess it's sterile from a patient perspective, but it looks clean,” said Dr. Frederic Paulin, walking through his new, state-of the-art procedure room.

Paulin is interim clinical chief of the province’s cardiovascular and stroke program. One of his main tasks is performing cardiac catheterization — a common heart procedure that many Newfoundlanders and Labradorians travel to St. John's to undergo.

The lab has added a fourth procedure room with the latest x-ray equipment, and a radial recovery lounge for patients post-procedure.

“So it actually means less spare time for me and more work time, which is good and bad. It is a double edged sword,” Paulin said lightheartedly. “But for a patient, it's definitely an improvement in access."

Heart disease rates in Newfoundland and Labrador trend higher than the national average at 8.4 per cent in 2023 compared to Canada's 6.3 per cent average, according to Statistics Canada. Cardiac catheterization helps to treat a variety of conditions like coronary artery disease, heart failure and more. It helps doctors look for blocked blood vessels, check oxygen levels in the heart and perform dye tests.

Donnie Sampson, senior director of the province's cardiovascular and stroke program, says the lab’s upgrades mean more patients will be able to get treated.

“Our waitlist was very high, usually around 600 or just over 600. We opened the fourth cath room in October and since that we've seen a significant decrease in the number on the waitlist to just under 400," she said.

The Health Sciences Centre in St. John’s is the only place to get this procedure done in the province. For years, the Heart Force One program has flown patients in from all over the province to get treatment at this lab.

Sampson says a centralized catheterization lab allows the highly specialized team of physicians and cardiologists to maintain skill and proficiency. She says serving the province is less about location and more about the lab’s capacity. While three was insufficient, she says adding a fourth procedure room has helped the lab meet the province’s demand.

“What we are seeing is that we continue to see the list decrease and it will actually enable us to add new services that were people now are currently going out of the province for,” Sampson said.

Sampson says providing some of those services, like MitraClip therapy, could be possible in the future given the lab’s increased capability. But, she says, the program’s goal before all else is to reduce the waitlist for cardiac catheterization procedures in the province.