The head of the medical staff at the South Bruce Grey Health Centre said doctors at the Walkerton hospital need more time before deciding on whether they want to set up a proposed specialized stroke treatment centre. A month ago hospital president and chief administrative officer Paul Davies told the board of directors the hospital has the CT scanner and other equipment needed to join the provincial Telestroke system. On Feb. 22 Dr. Andrew Denyer told directors at a meeting in Durham that the doctors at the Walkerton hospital are mulling over the proposal and assessing the risks involved. The same drugs used to treat stroke are used in the treatment of heart attack and there are risks involved. Treating strokes with these blood thinning agents is not entirely without risk. There is a risk of bleeding. So potentially you could make the patient worse. At the same time the benefits to patients are huge, said Dr. Andrew Denyer during the hospital board meeting. A stroke is such a devastating event to happen to anyone and even though people survive them they are so disabled and the quality of life is very poor. So if you can do anything for these people you should, he added. Denyer explained that stroke victims must receive specialized treatment within four hours of the event. For that reason the provincial Telestroke system was established at hospitals that have a CT scanner. Patients are rushed directly to a designated centre by paramedics bypassing other closer emergency services. In this area theres a stroke centre at the hospital in Owen Sound and Goderich. The Walkerton hospital is the only one in Bruce County with a CT scanner. For the patients that you do get to within time its well worth it. Time is of the essence. Four hours is the time from when the event actually happened to the time you actually give these drugs. So you have to get your scan done, get your scans read in time. If you have to travel a lot further you obviously cut out a lot of people, Denyer said. Denyer said discussions hes had with the doctors at the Owen Sound hospital indicate that they havent had any problems using the drugs since the program was introduced several years ago. They say it works well as long as you have the criteria strictly in place and you follow the rules, he said. Denyer said the stroke procedure involves more work and additional responsibility along with added risk, but noted that any doctor can perform the procedure. I think a lot of doctors are fairly conservative and it takes awhile for them to buy into this. But it does seem to becoming the general idea that this should be done. Goderich does it, Owen Sound does it. My feeling is that Walkerton should be doing it as well, said Denyer, who promised to continue discussions with the Walkerton doctors and, if necessary, involve specialists in Owen Sound and London. Hopefully we can get some sort of consensus on this, Denyer said.
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Doctors undecided about stroke centre