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Heart Attack & Cardiac Cath

Hello, my father suffered a heart attack today.  He was in the ER of a medical center with cardiac care, but is not a hopsital with cardiac surgery.  They want to perform a cardiac cath tomorrow morning and potentially insert a stent as well. They tested his enzymes and one came back OK and the other reading was inconclusive.  Why would they wait overnight before doing the cardiac cath? I thought time was of the essence with heart attacks.  Second, would it make more sense for us to move him to a hospital that also has a full cardiac surgery area in case something bad happens?

Thank you.
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187666 tn?1331173345
I'm sorry you're Dad had a heart attack. It's such a shock and very upsetting. My Dad's had 4 MI's. Each time they took several hours to monitor him, do tests, gets various meds started before they did any cath lab stuff. Poking around inside the heart can trigger some arrhythmias so it's best to stabilize first if he's awake and alert. My Dad was in the local hospital and they handled everything just fine. Not sure that they have a specialty cardiac surgical unit. But they were well equipped for the emergency treatment and doing the angioplasty.
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306245 tn?1244384967
First of all please know that I hope your dad will be okay. how are you doing?  I don't really know why they are waiting, maybe they want him to be satble befroe preforming this. maybe they are waiting for other test results. ASK THEM they should be able to tell you why. I wold wait at that hospital and see what the cath says, before shipping him. transferring him might not be on the safe side just yet.
did they tell you the risk of having a cath done? that may be why they are wainting he might be at a higher risk if they were to do it today.
What ever you guys decide to do I hope he will be okay. take care
Michelle
Helpful - 0
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