The provincial government has announced funding for a specialized cardiac procedure. Funding of $330,000 is being added to the budget to establish a Transcatheter Mitral Valve Repair program. With this procedure, a leaking mitral heart valve is repaired so it doesn’t damage the heart and lead to congestive heart failure. A news release from the government say it is a minimally invasive, lower-risk procedure with quicker recovery time compared to the alternative, which is open heart surgery.

The funding supports the program at the Royal University Hospital Catheterization Lab. Ten of the mitral valve repair procedures will be performed this year for priority cases on the wait list, and two have already been done. Saskatchewan is the first of the western provinces to perform the procedure through a government-funded program.