A Stayner resident has become the first person in the region to benefit from advanced cardiac care under the Simcoe Muskoka Code STEMI Protocol.
It was first introduced to the county in November 2020 and rolled out to the residents in the Collingwood and Midland area in February.
The protocol sends patients who present at Collingwood General and Marine Hospital (CGMH) with heart attack symptoms to be transported directly to RVH’s Cardiac Intervention Unit for life-saving treatment.
Douglas Callow (aged 83) began experiencing chest pain while clearing snow off his garage in Stayner on February 19th, when a neighbour immediately took him to CGMH and he was safely transported to RVH where the cardiac team was waiting for him.
Callow was very pleased with how fast things unfolded.
“When I arrived at the Collingwood hospital I was seen right away. They told me I was having a heart attack and that I needed to go to RVH in Barrie. It was like a scene out of a television show. There were people everywhere caring for me,” he said. “Once I arrived at RVH, the cardiac team was expecting me and everything went very smoothly. I felt well cared for.”
“Having these advanced cardiac services, and a highly-skilled team at RVH means that now the majority of patients in Simcoe County will be able to get lifesaving intervention within 120 minutes of a heart attack,” says Dr. Tony Lee, medical director of RVH’s Cardiac Intervention Unit. “That is great news because the faster a patient can be treated, the better the outcome. When it comes to the heart, ‘time is muscle.’ This is a very important step in our safe, gradual phased approach to eventually bring timely access to 24/7 advanced cardiac care to all of North Simcoe Muskoka. This new cardiac protocol would not be possible without the full collaboration of all our health partners in this region including the extraordinary partnerships with Georgian Bay General Hospital and Collingwood General and Marine Hospital.”
RVH is well-positioned to deliver advanced cardiac care. The regional heart program, a partnership with Southlake, opened in January 2018 and since then the cardiac team has completed just over 6,000 heart procedures including angiograms, angioplasty, and pacemaker implants.