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“This is my heart… It’s my choice.”

Danny Williams says he had no choice but to travel to U.S. for surgery

“This is my heart, it’s my health, it’s my choice.” On Monday, Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams lashed out against critics, who say that his decision to travel to Florida for heart surgery is a sign of his lack of faith in the Canadian health care system. “Did some checking, of course, and what was ultimately done to me, the surgery I eventually got [minimally invasive mitral valve surgery]…was not offered to me in Canada,” Williams explained in an NTV News interview. Not so, say Canadian surgeons! “It’s his body, it’s his money, hopefully, but don’t tell us the operation cannot be done here. It can be done,” insisted Dr. Arvind Koshal, director of cardiac surgery at Edmonton’s Mazankowski Alberta Health Institute. Koshal added that some of the best mitral valve surgeons practice in Montreal and Toronto, and that wait times for the procedure are relatively short.

Globe and Mail

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