New funding will boost Sault Area Hospital cardiac care services

Sault Area Hospital (SAH) has received an additional $1.8 million in operational funding from the provincial government, announced by Sault MPP Ross Romano during a virtual meeting with SAH, other community stakeholders and media Friday morning.

That amount is a 1.3 per cent increase in funding for SAH services, $800,000 of which will go specifically to cardiac care services.

Wendy Hansson, SAH president and CEO, told SooToday the funding will allow for 144 cardiac catheterizations (bringing SAH’s total allocated cardiac catheterization volume to 1,044 procedures), 77 additional PCI (angioplasty) procedures and 35 additional pacemaker procedures (bringing the total allocated volumes to 377 and 175 respectively).

That represents an approximate 20 per cent increase in SAH's base volumes in these procedures.

“We appreciate and welcome this funding support from our MPP Ross Romano and the provincial government. These funds will be used in day-to-day operations to help us provide quality programs and services to our patients, and this incremental funding will help the hospital fund inflationary expenses. Funding for our cardiac program will benefit our cardiac patients and the residents of Algoma,” Hansson wrote in a separate news release.

Friday’s funding announcement is part of a massive, additional $935 million in funding for Ontario hospitals within the provincial government’s ‘Ontario's Action Plan: Responding to COVID-19,’ unveiled earlier this spring.

That new funding gives $594 million in support for Ontario hospitals to meet current and future demands.

The money for SAH’s cardiac care program is part of an ongoing effort to spare many Sault and Algoma residents from travelling to other cities for cardiac procedures, Romano said.

“For so long we’ve been hearing this, quite frankly I think I’ve heard this for decades in Sault Ste. Marie, people having to travel across the province to get care. We know we go as far as Toronto for some services. In some cases in the past we’ve gone northerly toward Thunder Bay and in some cases going to Sudbury...London, Ottawa as well,” Romano said.

“I think this additional funding will help try to limit that, and try to ensure that we can get as much of the care services that we need here in our community so residents are not required to travel,” Romano said.