'Danny Millions' Williams heads south for heart surgery
February 03, 2010
Tonda MacCharles
Danny Williams became premier after the Conservatives won the Oct. 21, 2003 provincial election.
ANDREW VAUGHAN/THE CANADIAN PRESS FILE PHOTOOTTAWA–Danny Williams' decision to head south for heart surgery has sparked a furious debate on both sides of the border.
The premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, a former lawyer and millionaire businessman, left Monday for an unspecified cardiac surgical procedure at an undisclosed U.S. hospital. The move raised questions about whether he could have the operation in Canada.
Conservative Senator Wilbert Keon, a retired heart surgeon and professor emeritus at University of Ottawa, said Newfoundland does not have the special pumps and post-op technical support to allow all advanced complicated procedures to be performed there.
Nevertheless, Keon added, "I can't imagine anything that couldn't be done in Canada that is done in America."
He said "virtually all" complicated heart surgery can be done at Ottawa's Heart Institute and in Toronto, Montreal and Edmonton.
The reaction was loud and scornful south of the border, where health-care reform has conservatives fired up and ready to poke holes in the Canadian system.
"Canada: The Land of Health Care So Awesome That Its Politicians Undergo Surgery in the United States," The American Pundit wrote sarcastically.
"Canada keeps its costs down, in part, by neglecting the expensive business of advanced specialty care knowing that the U.S. is next door to help," wrote a commenter identified as Matt in a USpoliticsonline forum.
Williams' decision sparked questions on the airwaves and on the Internet all day.
Did the premier, known as Danny Millions, have, and spurn, the option of having the heart surgery in Canada? If the procedure could be done in Canada, would he have had to wait long for it? Did he fear a public perception of jumping a queue, or simply chose a ritzier health-care setting that he could afford and would grant him swift care and privacy?
Deputy Premier Kathy Dunderdale said Williams is "more than prepared" to answer all questions "once he recovers."
Williams had consulted "a number of medical experts" over several weeks, said Dunderdale.
"It was never offered to him as an option to have this procedure done in the province," she told reporters in St. John's. She would not specify whether the procedure was available elsewhere in Canada, nor how the U.S. hospital bill would be paid.
Williams' recovery is expected to take from three to 12 weeks.
Keon suggested there may be an "odd occasion where some novel operative procedure arises in America through research that has not been implemented at that point in time in Canada."
But he said Canadian heart care is "frequently ahead" of the U.S.
The Cardiac Care Network of Ontario classifies heart patients for care on three bases: "emergent – you're done right away," "urgent – you're done in a few days" or "elective – you may have to wait for a while, because you're not at any significant risk."
"I hate to speculate ... but the situation does arise where somebody who is wealthy wants to be done in luxurious surroundings and wants to be done right away," Keon said.
In Newfoundland, Liberal Opposition leader Yvonne Jones tried to walk a fine line, saying that while she wished Williams a speedy recovery, his decision to stay silent raised questions in a province struggling to restore confidence in its health system.
The Williams government last year apologized and called an inquiry into a series of breast cancer testing errors that meant many patients were not properly diagnosed.
"When you're in a position of public office like the premier is today, I think you at the very least owe it to the people (to give) an explanation as to why you're choosing to have the procedure done outside of your own province and outside your own country," she said.
