March 14, 2025, 3 PM – Sheila Malcolmson, MLA, Nanaimo-Gabriola Island, Constituency Office, Nanaimo, BC

Meeting: The Honourable Sheila Malcolmson, MLA, Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction, and the Nanaimo Heart Sisters – Shelley Wilkins Wallace, Diane Shipclark and Joanne MacDonald Booth

We represent the Nanaimo Heart Sisters, a non-profit group in Central Vancouver Island whose mandate is to provide support and advocate for women with lived experience of heart attacks, heart disease and strokes.

The statistics are frightening. According to the World Heart Federation, cardiovascular disease is responsible for 30 per cent of deaths in women each year. The Federation says that is more than twice the number of women who die each year from all forms of cancer combined. (www.worldheartfederation.org)

In Canada, the Heart & Stroke Foundation says that in 2019, heart disease and stroke claimed the lives of more than 32,271 women in Canada – that’s one woman’s life lost every 16 minutes. (www.heartandstroke.ca)

NANAIMO HEART SISTERS

Our group was created in 2009, by two survivors of heart attacks, aged 49 and 55, who shared common concerns. These included: the lack of emergency care of lifesaving, appropriate medical procedures in Nanaimo; the lack of post-surgery cardiac care in Nanaimo, including local access to cardiologists, education and rehab programs; and essential emotional and social support for survivors.

Over the past 16 years, our group has increased to 30 women. Initially, the Nanaimo Heart and Stroke office would refer women who had experienced heart attacks or strokes to me, Diane Shipclark. That local support ended when Heart and Stroke closed its Nanaimo office in 2018, and our only link for resources from Heart and Stroke Canada ended.

Relying on “word of mouth” and establishing our up-to-date, informative website, www.nanaimoheartsisters.com, we continue to hear from and welcome new heart attack and stroke survivors to our group. We meet monthly to share our stories and to support and provide heartfelt empathy.

As survivors who have experienced the life-threatening wait in the intensive care unit of the Nanaimo Regional General Hospital (NRGH), we understand how fragile life can be.

We also know that waiting to be transported to Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria for lifesaving cardiac procedures in their cardiac catheter labs leads to further complications, damage to the heart, and may cause death.

Thus, our mandate, as Nanaimo Heart Sisters and members of the Fair Care Alliance, is to fully support the immediate addition of a cardiac catheter lab at NRGH. We know that our lives depend on it!

REQUESTING YOUR SUPPORT

We are meeting with you, our MLA, to ask for your full support in making this happen.

We need you to be aware of and to address the vital need for both emergency cardiac care and medical procedures, as well as appropriate post-surgery care and support for patients and their families during recovery and rehabilitation.

Here are the facts we know: The Central/North Island region, has the oldest population in Canada, with the 50-years-and-older demographic projected to continue growing. NRGH carries a greater burden of cardiac emergencies, disease and care than the two hospitals in the South Island region combined.

Nanaimo’s hospital serves patients from many other communities, including Comox, Courtenay, Campbell River, Port Alberni, Tahsis and Ladysmith. We know that anyone suffering a heart attack has only 90 minutes to have their blocked arteries opened without facing damage to the heart muscle.

But we also know that the Central/North Island is the only place in Canada with a population of more than 400,000 that does not have a cardiac catheter lab and cannot provide the necessary lifesaving procedure to heart attack patients within those critical 90 minutes.

The distance to receive treatment for what we may potentially all need is killing us!

ADDRESSING THE NEED FOR A CATH LAB

The Nanaimo & District Hospital Foundation has proposed three ways to add a cardiac catheter lab to NRGH. The fastest way would be to build a mobile facility adjacent to the hospital. We have been advised by the Foundation that this would take 12 to 18 months to deploy. The facility would require 7,400 square feet. The staff and cardiologists would work with state-of-the-art equipment for testing and procedures. However, NRGH currently only has two cardiologists, thus limiting cardiac care. Work is being done to recruit more cardiologists to the Nanaimo area.

Since 2023, petitions and letter writing campaigns to the BC government have been conducted, and the Fair Care Alliance advocacy group has grown – www.weneedhealthcare.ca. Generous donations have been made, with public awareness and widespread community and local government support for a cardiac catheter lab continuing to grow.

It is our hope that you will be our advocate by approaching the Minister of Health, Josie Osborne, the Minister of Finance, Brenda Bailey, and the Minister of Infrastructure, Bowinn Ma, to ask for their full support as well.

We greatly appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to meet with us.

Thank you, Minister.