Hamilton General Hospital gets life-saving treatment just weeks before COVID hit
Hamilton General Hospital got a last-ditch treatment for some of the sickest heart and lung patients only one month before COVID-19 hit.
It took years for Hamilton to get the potentially life-saving treatment called extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) that takes over the job of delivering oxygen to the body when the heart and lungs are incapable.
Essentially ECMO is like a modified heart lung bypass machine that can ... buy us some time for the rest of the treatments," said Dr. Andre Lamy, surgical director of the new program. The ECMO machine can take over ... while their organs are recuperating."
In the end, it arrived just in time for the pandemic to land in Hamilton on March 11.
We started using ECMO in Hamilton in February ... just before the cases of COVID were locally rising," said Lamy, who is a cardiac surgeon. We developed protocols so that we were ready to use ECMO for COVID patients locally."
ECMO is only for those who are dying and have no other options but are young and otherwise healthy enough to survive the treatment.
It's such a last resort that just eight patients have been given the treatment here since February. One of them had COVID.
We have had an increasing number of referrals with rising cases in our region, and we anticipate needing to use ECMO more frequently through the second wave of COVID-19," said Dr. Faizan Amin, medical director of the new program.
ECMO expands on a process that is already used every day in cardiac surgery of pumping blood out of the body, bringing oxygen to it and sending it back.
Instead of the treatment being only for an hour or two, ECMO is a special device that will last three days, five days, a week or two weeks," said Lamy.
It's a gamble that can lead to bleeding, blood clots, stroke and compromised circulation. The organs must heal quickly because ECMO only lasts so long.
ECMO is a sophisticated and risky treatment," said Amin. We have a team of people that evaluate every person with very severe lung injury or heart injury. Depending on many factors, we decide whether a person can withstand the risks."
It's most often used for heart attack or cardiac surgery patients as well as those with severe pneumonia, trauma to their lungs and now COVID.
ECMO is the last resort in rescuing some of the sickest patients ... who may otherwise not survive," said Amin. This is a treatment that can sometimes offer very sick patients an opportunity to see their loved ones again."
David De Giuli still can't believe his life was in such danger that ECMO was his only hope.
The engineer and businessperson was healthy and had been regularly going to the gym before the COVID lockdown in the spring. It wasn't until he later started walking and riding his bike that he got the first sign that something was off.
I started getting shortness of breath and it was really odd," he said. I was attributing it to being so inactive for so long during the lockdown."
It got worse to the point that he went to the emergency room at Juravinski Hospital in May.
It was brutal," said De Giuli. I couldn't even walk 10 steps. I was like, What is going on?'"
He was booked for tests but was back at emergency in June with swelling in his midsection. He was diagnosed with pericarditis, an inflammation of the fibrous sac surrounding the heart, and given medication.
It just wasn't getting better," said De Giuli. I couldn't sleep and I couldn't breathe."
Eventually, he was taken by ambulance to Hamilton General Hospital where he deteriorated quickly.
My symptoms just started getting worse and worse," he said. My body was shutting down ... I was going into heart failure."
He had cardiac surgery on Aug. 10 but complications left him on ECMO.
My family was scared," De Giuli said about his mom, brother and sister who were told he had about a 50 per cent chance of success. There was just no other option."
He was on ECMO for about one week.
It saved my life," he said. The funny thing is never at any time did I ever think I was in a life-threatening situation. I just didn't think it was going to be that serious."
It was a fluke he was even in Hamilton because he was supposed to be in Florida launching his new hair care brand Curls by the Sea under his business Daves-way Industries Inc.
But first visa issues and then COVID kept him in Hamilton.
The $170,000 machines that ultimately saved his life were donated only months earlier by the Hamilton Health Sciences Foundation. In the past, patients were sent to Toronto.
The whole thing is bizarre," he said. I came out the other side luckily ... The ECMO machine was a great success story and hopefully it will help others."
Amin called it a huge leap forward" for Hamilton.
ECMO is only available in some hospitals across the province and the country," he said. We can now serve patients from our region with this treatment."
Joanna Frketich is a Hamilton-based reporter covering health for The Spectator. Reach her via email: jfrketich@thespec.com