Dubbo Hospital's doctors and nurses promote heart health during Heart Week 2023

Heart Week is held across Australia in the first week of May each year to raise awareness of the importance of heart health and positive steps people can take to help reduce risk of heart disease.

In coincidental timing, the hospital's Cardiac Catheter Laboratory (Cath Lab) reached a significant milestone during Heart Week.

"We very excitedly on Wednesday afternoon (May 3) hit our 500th case in the Cath Lab, it was a really nice patient to hit 500 with," Cath Lab nurse in charge (NUM) Madeleine McKenzie-Lindgren said.

"We've got brand new staff in the Cath Lab and most of them have no Cath Lab experience at all. We've been lucky to source a couple of experienced staff but a lot of our staff has trained at Orange health service and our 500th patient was a patient that received a coronary angiogram when they were training down there and he remembered them all and it was a very lovely story."

Dr Neil Goonetilleke, Advanced Trainee Cardiology at Dubbo Hospital said 500 was an impressive number for the six months they've had the state of the art equipment.

"The Cath Lab allows us to perform coronary angiograms which is an invasive procedure to see what's going on inside the vessels of the heart," he said.

"When a patient comes into the emergency department or they have a coronary event on the ward, the cardiology team get involved and if appropriate, one of the investigations is to organise an angiogram which means we get the patient across from the ward or the emergency department, bring them up to the Cath Lab and the nursing staff set them up and we organise the procedure which looks at the vessels of the heart to see any significant blockages."

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Ms McKenzie-Lindgren, who manages a team of eight nurses as well as coordinates the radiographers and administration staff, said the Cath Lab allows them to do a range of procedures.

"The most common is a diagnostic coronary angiogram where we use a series of catheters and wires to inject dye into the coronary arteries and have a look at the disease level in those arteries," she said.

With patients coming from all over the Central West, including from as far as Lightning Ridge and Bourke to further south in Parkes, Dr Goonetilleke said chronic diseases, like coronary disease, remain a major concern in our health district compared to the rest of NSW.

"Heart disease is quite prevalent in our area and community, especially in the Central West and that's why we are trying to raise this awareness in the community, so they can be more aware and try and prevent this disease from occurring," he said.

"Particularly our smoking rate and family history, as well as obesity, sugar and cholesterol levels, so the first check is to go to your GP and get all these things checked out and as required you can be referred to a cardiologist and we can try and prevent you from having a heart attack."

Before Dubbo Hospital was installed with its own cardiac catheter laboratory, patients from the region had to travel to Orange for appointments.

Dr Goonetilleke said patients were happier now they could be treated in their home town if it was safe and appropriate.

"While the service has been incredibly successful so far and reduced the need for patients to travel for cardiac care, we can all take simple steps to help keep us out of hospital," he said.

"Maintaining a healthy diet, doing regular physical activity and quitting smoking are three positive steps that can significantly reduce your risk of heart disease, particularly by helping to reduce and control blood pressure and cholesterol.

"Understanding heart health and other risk factors like age, family history, diabetes and obesity is also incredibly important. I encourage everyone to speak to their doctor and have a Heart Health Check to understand and manage their risk.

"Don't ignore any warning signs as heart disease can very easily lead to heart attack, or failure. Warning signs of a heart attack include chest pain, arm or shoulder pain, jaw pain and shortness of breath. If you have these symptoms, call Triple Zero (000) immediately."

Despite only taking on the NUM position little over a year ago, Ms McKenzie-Lindgren said the Cath Lab was an amazing facility to work in.

"We have state of the art equipment which is so nice to see in a regional setting and the staff here are amazingly knowledgeable about everything we do, so it's a lovely environment and is such a good service for this community," she said.

The Dubbo Hospital Cardiac Catheter Laboratory began operations in June 2022 and was the final service to come online as part of the $306 million Dubbo Health Service Redevelopment.