Zielke, Neudorf spoke about the allocation’s meaning for CRH

By Lethbridge Herald on March 3, 2026.

Herald photo by ALEJANDRA PULIDO-GUZMAN Lead physician of the Cardiac Sciences for Alberta Health Services South Zone, Dr. Sayeh Zielke, speaks about the Bringing Hearts Home campaign alongside Premier Danielle Smith and Ministers Matt Jones and Nate Horner, Monday at Chinook Regional Hospital.

By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman

Lethbridge Herald

Lead physician of the Cardiac Sciences for Alberta Health Services South Zone Dr. Sayeh Zielke and MLA for Lethbridge-East Nathan Neudorf spoke about what the Budget 2026 allocation for the Chinook Regional Hospital means for the Bringing Hearts Home Campaign on Monday. 

After Premier Danielle Smith announced an investment of $59 million over three years into expanding cardiac services and intensive care capacity in Southern Alberta Monday while in Lethbridge, Dr. Zielke said their fundraising efforts will continue until January 2027. 

“We intend to continue to fundraise, that helps with the momentum of building these services, but also most importantly, it raises the profile of cardiovascular care,” said Zielke. 

She said our region experiences 30 per cent higher mortality rate compared to the rest of the province, which in part reflects the cardiac risk factors in the community, which are 15.5 per cent higher than the rest of the province. 

“This is our moment to raise awareness, to raise funds and to bend the curve on our outcomes,” said Zielke.

When talking about the influence of those involved in the campaign have on government decisions, Neudorf said that having a community make their voices heard by commitment of their finances and their time, makes it really easy for government to support this decision. 

“When the community rises up, it definitely helps local representatives to share that voice and clarify the priorities of the region,” said Neudorf. “A rallying cry that is community lead just makes it a much easier decision at Treasury Board and Cabinet table, to see these kinds of projects proceed.” 

Dr. Zielke explained the investment into expanding cardiac services in southern Alberta means prevention, intervention, as well as diagnostics and recovery and rehabilitation. 

“Currently we do not have access to coronary catheterization laboratory. That is where you do diagnostic testing to take a look at the arteries of the heart,” said Zielke. “To see how closed they are and what kind of intervention is needed, as well as measuring the pressures inside of the heart when there are diseases of the valves within the heart.”  

She said this is also the same technology that is used to open an artery when it’s blocked, and someone is having a heart attack. 

“It is very critical, especially in the type of heart attack where you have complete and total closure,” said Zielke. 

She said at the moment, what they are able to do at the Chinook Regional Hospital is to administer thrombolytics, a clot busting medication, to be able to transfer the patients to Calgary to open the arteries as needed. 

“That carries risk, it carries cost. You also have the cost of and the time of our ambulance services being on the road, and it delays care,” said Zielke. 

She said sometimes transfers are not successful and there are cases where patients may be too sick to airlift or to transport.  

“The fundraising has been absolutely foundational to advancing cardiac care. We have written a plan and a program for what we call Southern Alberta Prevents, to try to bend the curve on our risk factors in our population,” said Zielke. “The money that we have raised as a community is already having an impact.”