Two children's heart doctors for Winnipeg Regional

The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority has successfully recruited two children's heart doctors from London, Ont.

WRHA spokeswoman Heidi Graham confirmed doctors Dion Pepelassis and Ilan Buffo of the Children's Hospital of Western Ontario were "aggressively recruited" to come work at Winnipeg's Children's Hospital, which has only one pediatric cardiologist for a population of 1.2 million.

The London doctors will leave their positions in Ontario at the end of June. The two are then expected to start in Winnipeg next summer, said Graham.

The move has left the Southwestern Ontario region with no such specialists for 450,000 kids.

"As every other jurisdiction does when there's a shortage, we recruit," said Graham.

"Manitoba has been short two cardiac specialists since this past summer," she said. The WRHA has been searching for specialists across Canada and the U.S. for months.

The two heart doctors weren't talking yesterday, but the London Health Sciences Centre's senior medical director for women and children said he believes they were offered "a very attractive overall package" in Winnipeg.

Winnipeg Sun

The Holidays: Don't ignore cardio health!

Be extra careful during the holidays: risks of a heart attack are higher and hospitals are short-staffed!

Why are risks of a heart attack higher during the holidays?

Here are some factors to consider:

• Busy revellers tend to skip their medications, forget them when travelling or be unable to get refills far from home.
• What dieter can resist holiday goodies? The few extra pounds so many people gain will haunt you long term. Right away, a particularly heavy meal, especially a high-fat one, stresses the heart as it is digested. Blood pressure and heart rate increase. There's even evidence that the lining of arteries becomes temporarily more clot prone.
• Too much salt has an even more immediate effect, causing fluid retention that in turn makes the heart have to pump harder.
• Alcohol in moderation is considered heart healthy. But if a round of holiday parties leaves you tipsy, that, too, makes your heart pump harder to get blood to peripheral arteries.
• Worse is something called "holiday heart syndrome," where alcohol literally irritates the heart muscle to trigger an irregular heartbeat called atrial fibrillation. If atrial fibrillation goes unchecked for too long, it in turn can cause a stroke.
• People say they're too busy to exercise, especially as it gets cold and darkness falls earlier. It can take months to build back up to pre-holiday exercise habits.
• As for cold weather, it can constrict blood vessels, and the extra exertion of snow shovelling can cause a heart attack. The usual winter rise in respiratory diseases is another risk, adding further burden to a stressed heart: another reason to get a flu shot.

"Moderation is the key to almost everything. Happy Holidays!"