Kelowna infant caught in red-tape nightmare
Advocates are calling on health authorities to immediately resolve an internal conflict at B.C. Children’s Hospital that has led to the indefinite suspension of the hospital’s heart transplant program.
The suspension of the program was announced after Dr. Sanjiv Gandhi, chief of pediatric cardiothoracic surgery, took a leave of absence starting July 1, following a B.C. Supreme Court decision to reinstate a surgeon with whom Gandhi had a conflict.
In a letter to patients’ families on June 17, the children’s hospital called the leave a “scheduled vacation.”
All told, 13 pediatric care patients have been affected since the July 1 suspension of the program, with those patients being treated out of province. Six patients who were treated out of province have since returned.
Kelowna mother Heather Lazeski watched her six-month-old son James go into cardiac arrest during medical transport to Edmonton on Aug. 10.
“We were told the transplant couldn’t be done in Vancouver and that we would have to go to Edmonton,” said Lazeski.
During the flight, she said James went into cardiac arrest for five minutes, and was saved by medical workers on board. The infant went into cardiac arrest for 25 minutes during ambulance transport to the hospital in Edmonton, leading to liver and kidney failure.
“I’m haunted by the transport,” said Lazeski.
“Now he is intubated, he is on dialysis, he has left ventricular device (an LVAD) because he can’t have a Berlin heart (an artificial heart pump for children awaiting transplant that also enables them to leave the ICU) while he needs dialysis,” said father Steve Lazeski.
The family has been told they may have to stay in Edmonton for up to a year while James waits for a heart.
“We have an excellent program in Vancouver, we have the beds at B.C. Children’s Hospital, but we have no surgeons,” said Steve Lazeski.
Debbie Bielech, who founded the Children’s Organ Transplant Society and successfully advocated for the province to fund a more comprehensive organ transplant program
after her son was sent out of province for a liver transplant two decades ago, said the current program is in a tenuous and destabilized state, leaving children at risk.
The children’s hospital established the Multi-Organ Transplant Program in 2009, recruited Dr. Gandhi in 2010 and launched the pediatric heart transplant program in 2013.
The program improved outcomes, decreased wait times, relieved families of travelling to other provinces for surgeries and is more cost effective than transferring patients out of province, said Bielech.
Despite these successes, court documents show an internal conflict arose between Gandhi and another cardiothoracic surgeon, Dr. Andrew Campbell, at the children’s hospital. In 2017, Campbell’s clinical services contract was terminated by the hospital without cause, giving him 12 months’ working notice.
Campbell retained some privileges at the hospital, and filed an appeal to the Hospital Appeal Board. The Provincial Health Services Authority argued that the appeal board did not have jurisdiction to hear the appeal because his hospital privileges had not been revoked.
In August 2020, the appeal board released a decision that determined the health services authority must restore Dr. Campbell’s access to “a fair and equitable allocation of patients,” and recommended andhi supervise Campbell’s surgeries “for whatever period of time Dr. G determines is necessary to be comfortable with Dr. Campbell’s skills and competence.”
In a statement to Postmedia, the Provincial Health Services Authority said: “We remain committed to providing children and their families with the highest quality patient care, but we acknowledge that in recent weeks we have been faced with challenges in delivering on this. We apologize for the stress this may have caused the patients and families who need us most. … We know that some families required care out of province, and we deeply regret causing them any additional concerns and added stress.”
The health authority concluded: “Our leaders, staff and physicians are focused on ensuring that all the program elements necessary will soon be in place to provide a full-service cardiac sciences program to support B.C. children and families whenever needed.”