Artery ops could come to Royal Gwent (From South Wales Argus)

Artery ops could come to Royal Gwent

12:40pm Friday 3rd July 2009

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)

GWENT heart patients who require angioplasty - an operation to widen narrowed arteries - could soon undergo the procedure at the Royal Gwent Hospital, if funding can be approved.

Assembly health minister Edwina Hart has told South Wales East regional AM William Graham that the move is an option that should be urgently considered.

Currently the cardiology unit at the Royal Gwent, which opened four years ago at a cost of around £4.5 million, carries out a range of heart tests on Gwent patients, including angiograms, or cardiac catherisation, in which a thin flexible tube is guided to the heart and a special dye injected, to try to discover if blood vessels are blocked, or valves or muscle damaged.

Anyone subsequently requiring an operation, including angioplasty, must currently go to the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, or further afield.

UHW and Morriston Hospital in Swansea are currently the only centres offering angioplasty in south Wales, but cardiologists at the Royal Gwent are keen on the prospect of angioplasty being made available there.

Such a move could involve redirecting a proportion of existing funding for treating Gwent patients in Cardiff, though there may also be a need for extra money to cope with unmet demand.

Mr Graham, who asked Ms Hart at health ministers' question time in the Senedd to extend funding to support angioplasty at the Royal Gwent, said he is pleased she agreed that such a move is an option.

"It is recognised that it is best to treat patients near to their home, allowing families to be able to support them through their treatment and recovery," he said.

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)