Very sad. He did get an ECG and blood test early in his visit. Obviously they did not conclusively show that he was having a heart attack.
Chest pain being a heart attack is easy to diagnose after the fact and not nearly as easy to diagnose before.
Many things from serious to benign can present like a heart attack. I have gastro issues that present exactly as a heart attack and when I end up in the ER they have to go through the whole process of eliminating heart attack before treating what we know from history is the gastro related problem.
My aunt died of a massive heart attack a couple years ago in similar circumstances to this man, in a reputably ‘good’ ER. I know the staff were doing what testing they could. They cannot put every single person who comes in with severe chest pain and no ECG or blood enzymes abnormalities into a cath lab. They need something to go on and in fact not every heart attack clearly announces itself as such. Even if the media thinks it was a no brainer - after the fact - pain alone is not nearly enough to diagnose a heart attack.
Just like cancer, not everyone is going to have the right symptoms that result in finding it at an early stage when it is treatable. Putting someone with a cracked rib, or bleeding ulcer or some other such thing into a cath lab for a heart attack they aren’t having, won’t save any more lives.
It is a fallacy to think that we can always present ourselves in ER, any ER, in the nick of time to be saved from our bad health. Sometimes it is just way too late. Learn prevention: eat better, sleep adequately, exercise, get regular medical checkups (even if that means forgoing a vacation or other treats so you can afford to pay for it privately).
Albertans vote for small government and individualism - that means medicine becomes something you need to provide for yourself. We Canadians are paying for all the cutbacks in the 1990s when conservatives thought all government (and its services of medicine & education) was bloated. Along with the substantially lower taxes individuals and corporations now pay, we are never going to get the higher ratios of medical care we once had. And even so, in the ‘good old days’, even more people died.
Very sad. He did get an ECG and blood test early in his visit. Obviously they did not conclusively show that he was having a heart attack.
Chest pain being a heart attack is easy to diagnose after the fact and not nearly as easy to diagnose before.
Many things from serious to benign can present like a heart attack. I have gastro issues that present exactly as a heart attack and when I end up in the ER they have to go through the whole process of eliminating heart attack before treating what we know from history is the gastro related problem. My aunt died of a massive heart attack a couple years ago in similar circumstances to this man, in a reputably ‘good’ ER. I know the staff were doing what testing they could. They cannot put every single person who comes in with severe chest pain and no ECG or blood enzymes abnormalities into a cath lab. They need something to go on and in fact not every heart attack clearly announces itself as such. Even if the media thinks it was a no brainer - after the fact - pain alone is not nearly enough to diagnose a heart attack. Just like cancer, not everyone is going to have the right symptoms that result in finding it at an early stage when it is treatable. Putting someone with a cracked rib, or bleeding ulcer or some other such thing into a cath lab for a heart attack they aren’t having, won’t save any more lives. It is a fallacy to think that we can always present ourselves in ER, any ER, in the nick of time to be saved from our bad health. Sometimes it is just way too late. Learn prevention: eat better, sleep adequately, exercise, get regular medical checkups (even if that means forgoing a vacation or other treats so you can afford to pay for it privately). Albertans vote for small government and individualism - that means medicine becomes something you need to provide for yourself. We Canadians are paying for all the cutbacks in the 1990s when conservatives thought all government (and its services of medicine & education) was bloated. Along with the substantially lower taxes individuals and corporations now pay, we are never going to get the higher ratios of medical care we once had. And even so, in the ‘good old days’, even more people died.