Fundraising paying off for cardiac centre

By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on April 17, 2025.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

Efforts to raise $30 million to improve cardiac care in Lethbridge and Medicine Hat are paying off.

Three new donation commitments totalling $350,000 mean a fundraiser to establish the Southern Alberta Cardiac Centre of Excellence has reached about a third of its goal.

Campaign manager Jordan Cleland said Wednesday about $10 million has been raised one third of the way through the self-imposed 30 month deadline to get the centre established.

The Cardiac Sciences Advisory Cabinet and AHS South Zone leadership has partnered with the CRH Foundation on the campaign to raise the money by the end of 2027 for the Southern Alberta Cardiac Centre of Excellence.

Heart disease is the leading cause in southern Alberta with death from all cardiac issues being 26.6 per cent higher here than in the rest of the province. There is also a 15.5-per-cent higher risk factor of heart attack in southern Alberta compared to the rest of the province. The death rate in southern Alberta caused by diseases of the circulatory system is 35.2 per cent.

About 1,300 local patients have to travel to Calgary to get interventional cardiology support and treatment. The goal of the fundraiser is to create a centre that will enable patients across southern Alberta to get the life-saving help they need closer to home.

Funds raised will mostly go towards upgrading CHR and the Medicine Hat Regional Hospital, with the cardiac catheterization lab here as well as equipment including a Cardiac CT scanner, Cardiac MRI machine, electrophysiology laboratory, echocardiography laboratories at both facilities, specialized beds at both facilities and cardiac monitors for service expansion at both facilities.

That $30 million will also cover the costs of other specialized equipment including mechanical ventilators, cardiac stress testing machines, resuscitation monitors and defibrillators, patient lifts and dialysis machines. Prevention programming is also part of the cardiac services plan.

The most recent donations have come from Gas King which has pledged $150,000 while KCL Cattle Company and Lethbridge Toyota have pledged $100,000 each to the project.

“It feels like right now this Cardiac Care Centre of Excellence – Bringing Hearts Home campaign is riding the crest of a movement. We’ve got a real nice point where it feels like it’s tipped and we’ve got great momentum and the community is really taking notice of the need and the way that they can help,” said Cleland.

That community is not just Lethbridge, he noted, but southern Alberta itself because residents elsewhere also have to travel to Foothills Hospital in Calgary for cardiac services.

Reaching a third of the campaign’s goal with about 21.5 months to go is “great,” said Cleland.

“A lot of that $10 million has just come in the last couple of months,” he added.

While a February gala kicked off the campaign publicly, money has been raised since last September.

“Now the community is well aware of this,” Cleland said.

“To be able to come to Lethbridge for more substantive care is in many ways the difference between life and death in terms of having to go all the way to Calgary. If there’s an emergent cardiac event, there’s a 90-minute gold standard of care that you need an intervention,” said Cleland. And no communities in the South Zone of Alberta Health Services are within 90 minutes of Foothills Hospital, he noted.

He noted “the irrepressible Dr. Sayeh Zielke” wants to fix the situation.

“She’s a very determined professional and she cares a great deal about her patients,” said Cleland.

Cardiologist Zielke is not only an advocate for cardiac care but also serves in many roles including physician lead for cardiac sciences in Alberta Health Services South Zone and as chair for the Southern Alberta Cardiac Sciences Advisory Cabinet.

“Southern Alberta is in desperate need of improved cardiac services…it’s just not acceptable that our mortality rate is 26.6 per cent higher in this region compared to the rest of the province,” Zielke said at the gala.

In a media statement, Celia Shimek of KCL Cattle said “when we first heard about this initiative, we had just experienced first-hand the lack of cardiac care in southern Alberta. Like many other families, our grandmother couldn’t access the cardiac care and resources in Lethbridge that were needed to save her life. The cardiac centre will save many lives and keep our loved ones close to home. We are so happy to be able to contribute to this initiative.”

Lethbridge Toyota CEO Andrea Ulmer’s father benefitted from first-class cardiac care as a resident of Calgary and she says “it was fortunate he lived there and not in rural Western Canada where our dealerships are located and where we got our start. Access to top flight healthcare shouldn’t be contingent on your address, and Lethbridge and Medicine Hat are growing and dynamic Alberta cities – we need and deserve these things closer to home for our customers and employees.”

 Brent Morris of Gas King says before the campaign started he participated in the feasibility study for the project “so it’s fair to say that Gas King has seen the cardiac centre’s value for the Lethbridge hospital and the patient community it serves from day one.”

The goal of the campaign is to have the centre operational by 2027-28.

Earlier this month, the Alberta government announced it was accelerating plans for expanded cardiac care in the region.

The 2025 budget has $5 million to advance plans for enhanced cardiac and intensive care services, including the cardiac catheterization lab at Chinook Regional Hospital and expanded intensive care units here and in Medicine Hat.

The government accelerated the timeline for the cath lab last fall by one year and the 2025 budget includes funding for detailed planning to prepare it for construction funding in a future budget.

The province anticipates that he expanded ICU and diagnostic capabilities will add 34 beds to CRH and eight to the Medicine Hat hospital. Depending on hospital needs, the beds will be able to be used as ICU or lower-acuity beds, says the province.

The province expects the local cath lab to serve as many as 1,700 patients per year when it becomes operational.