A new lab at Windsor Regional Hospital's Ouellette campus will save patients the time and expense of crossing the border.
The hospital opened its new, expanded cardiac catheterization lab on Monday. It will host its first patient this week.
The lab, which is larger than the previous one in the basement of the Ouellette campus, is now on the second floor, allowing easy access to the emergency department and the cardiac care unit.
There are now two catheterization tables, after the previous lab was the only one in Ontario with one table. It will also be open 24 hours.
The new lab is the product of a $30-million grant from the provincial government to renovate the space into the larger lab and pay for the second table.
"We thank the Ford government for investing in this necessary and long-awaited project, which will save the lives of more cardiac patients in our region, and save on the costs to send patients to Detroit when they couldn’t be accommodated here. This is an important milestone in the history of the government’s commitment to patient care in Windsor and Essex County," said WRH CEO Kristin Kennedy.
Previously, the hospital had been forced to send an average of one cardiac patient a month to Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. The cost was between $43,000 and $75,000 U.S. per procedure. This did not count any additional interventions that may have been needed.
The provincial funding also supported a separate project to add a fourth linear accelerator, providing radiation treatment for local cancer patients.
