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Wednesday, Jan 31, 1990 North Shore Industrial Training Committee THE NORTH SHORE INDUSTRIAL TRAINING COMMITTEE will be holding its ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING Wednesday, January 31, 1990 at the Zero-100 JR Room in Marathon Social Hour 6:30 - 7:30 Refreshments Available | Business Meeting including election of new Board 7:30 - 9:00 EVERYONE WELCOME North Shore Industrial Training Committee THE NORTH SHORE INDUSTRIAL TRAINING COMMITTEE _ will be holding an information session on ELECTRONICS & ELECTRICAL UPGRADING OPPORTUNITIES To be held on Tuesday, February 13, 1990 from 7 - 9 p.m. at the Recreation Conference Room in Terrace Bay For information call Brian Gemmill at 824-3368 or 825-9588 | HELP WANTED The Terrace Bay/Schreiber News has an immediate opening for a full-time Reporter/Photographer This challenging career opportunity is available to someone who has the skills to perform in a dynamic position. If you believe that you may qualify or that you are interested in this position, contact: Paul Marcon General Manager Terrace Bay/Schreiber News P.O. Box 579 Terrace Bay, Ontario POT 2W0O . Or call 825-3747 Or visit 17 Simcoe Plaza New thrombolytic therapy program available at McCausland Hospital By K. W. Wilkes, M. D. Chicf of Staff The McCausland Hospital The McCausland Hospital has recently established a Thrombolytic Therapy Program for acute intervention in myocar- dial infarction paticnts. What this means to members of our com- munity is that a relatively new and potentially very effective treatment for patients who suffer a sudden heart attack is now available. The reason for making this announcement is that throm- bolytic therapy is most effective in patients who present to the hospital or their family doctor early on in the course of a heart attack. It is therefore the purpose of this article to make the communi- ty aware of the early signs and symptoms of heart attack and to inform them that in order to mod- ify the outcome in a positive way, early intervention is essential. The ability of the new throm- bolytic therapy program at The McCausland Hospital to decrease both the short and long term mor- bidity and mortality from acute myocardial infarction is directly linked to the awareness of the public to seek medical attention at the earliest sign of heart attack. A heart attack occurs when blood supplied to the heart mus- cle is interrupted by a blood clot in one of the coronary arteries supplying the heart muscle with oxygen. Once this coronary thrombosis occurs heart muscle damage and ultimatcly the death of heart muscle fibers occurs gradually over a period of approximately six hours. An intervention that can dissolve the thrombus or blood clot in the coronary artery and re-cstablish perfusion of the heart muscle within six hours is therefore like- ly to result in salvage of some or all of the affected heart muscle ' and thereby reduce the damage. It follows from the above, of course, that the sooner the blood supply is re-established to the heart muscle the smaller will be the area of heart muscle damage. Not every paticnt with acute myocardial infarction will be eli- gible for thrombolytic therapy. Due to the nature of the drug used and its side effects there are cer- tain paticnts in whom the treat- ment is contraindicatcd. Nevertheless, the majority of patients presenting early in the course of acute myocardial infarction would be eligible for thrombolytic therapy and would benefit from it. It should be noted also that although thrombolytic therapy points up the necessity for early intervention, early inter- vention is also necessary for the treatment of any complications of infarction that can occur at any time and are, in fact, more likely to occur early on in the course of myocardial infarction. The signs and symptoms of possible heart attack are com- monly known to be a heaviness in the chest or an uncomfortable squeezing sensation in the chest, often occurring after exertion or emotional stress, but also occur- ring at rest. Patients very often deny that this is a "pain", but describe it more as a discomfort. This discomfort can radiate to the left shoulder and arm, and some- times into the neck. The chest discomfort can be accompanied by difficulty breathing, pallor and sweating. This classical picture is unfortunatcly not always present and, in fact, myocardial infarction is often not suspected by the patient and the chest discomfort is put down to indigestion. In some cases the families have actually noted an active role of denial in patients suffering acute myocardial infarctions. For instance, a paticnt might say I'm too young or I'm too healthy to be having a heart attack, it must be just indigestion. This unfortunate- ly leads to unnecessary delays in treatment which is then associat- ed with a poor outcome. In light of the availability of thrombolytic treatment at The McCausland Hospital it is now more important that ever that people in the community under- stand the importance of early intervention in suspected cases of myocardial infarction. Thank you very much for your attention and have a Happy and Healthy New Year. The McCausland Hospital will be offering a FREE FOOT CARE CLINIC. For Nail Cutting and Packing, and advice on foot care. This procedure will be done at McCausland Hospital Monday, February Sth from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and on February 6th & 7th at Collingwood Court in Schreiber from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. For appointments, please phone 825-3273 Ext. 130