State orders hospital to cease heart procedure

AUGUSTA - The state has ordered Doctors Hospital to stop performing unauthorized heart procedures called therapeutic catheterization, which includes balloon angioplasty. <br> <br> In the procedure, a wire is inserted through an artery in the leg and threaded up to the heart, where a balloon is inflated inside the blood vessel to open it up. <br> <br> Andy Boisseau, spokesman for the Georgia Department of Community Health, said Doctors Hospital is allowed to do catheterization that is diagnostic , or inserting the wire into the heart to determine the extent of the heart problem, but not therapeutic. <br> <br> ``The state requires that if you are going to do therapeutic cardiac catheterization that you have an open heart backup facility, which they do not have,&#39;&#39; Boisseau said. <br> <br> When a patient cannot be safely transferred to an authorized hospital, Doctors is allowed to do the therapeutic procedure, Boisseau said. The hospital did 23 in 1999 and 26 in 2000, then the number doubled in 2001. <br> <br> ``Since it has doubled in the space of a year, we thought we should ask them for documentation&#39;&#39; on why the procedures were done, Boisseau said. <br> <br> Clyde Reese II, general counsel for the department, said he wants a formal answer by Friday. The hospital can be fined up to $5,000 a day for each day of unauthorized service. <br> <br> The hospital issued a statement saying it ``will continue to work cooperatively&#39;&#39; with the state and that many of its emergency patients, particularly burn patients, are too sick to move when they need cardiac care.

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