Matters of the Heart

“Overall, new surgery techniques and medical advances saved hundreds of thousands of Canadian children. One of those thousands was Bladek. And one of them was me—though, fortunately for me, my condition is less complex. The growing number of people like us living to adulthood is an incredible triumph of medicine. But it has also created a new problem. As of 2014, out of more than a quarter of a million people in Canada with congenital heart defects, two-thirds were adults. That number will keep growing, especially as paediatric cardiac surgery advances and as doctors save children with increasingly complex defects. The medical system, however, isn’t ready for these adult patients. Adult cardiology specialists have traditionally dealt only with acquired heart diseases, and those who train them didn’t anticipate the size of the new patient base heading their way.”

 

Kelsey Rolfe – Maisonneuve – September 2018

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