Page 6 - KootenaiHealth

dURInG A HeART ATTAcK oR cARdIAc eVenT, every moment counts. Since the opening of Kootenai Heart center, the lives of literally thousands of people in northern Idaho have been saved because patients have access to the care they need close to home.

Unfortunately every year approximately 400 people from northern Idaho must still travel out of the state be-cause the specialized care they need is not yet offered here. This year, the Kootenai Health Foundation is hoping to change that, and Jack yuditsky couldn’t be happier. A long-standing and respected member of the com-munity, Jack served on the Kootenai Health Foundation’s board of directors from 2002-2007. In 2003, while working with the Foundation to raise funds for a heart center in northern Idaho, Jack himself needed quadruple bypass surgery. The experience just reinforced his belief in the importance of making cardiac care available locally. Ironically, an experience Jack had this spring is again emphasizing the importance of enhancing cardiac ser-vices at Kootenai.

“I am a patient of James Pataky, M.d., of Heart clinics northwest,” yuditsky said, “and when you are a patient of dr. Pataky’s, he asks you to monitor your blood pres-sure every day. My heart rate is usually in the 50s, but this past April, we noticed it was up in the 80s.” Jack and his wife, Helen, were just preparing to re-turn home from wintering in Palm desert, california. Although he went to physicians there who checked his condition and recommended some medication changes, Jack and Helen wanted to wait until they were home to follow up with dr. Pataky.