Windsor, Ont.'s Hotel-Dieu Grace Hospital spokeswoman Kim Spirou shows plans for a $78M expansion, including a $12.5M angioplasty centre. (Tom Taylor/CBC)

The foundation at a Windsor, Ont., hospital has begun soliciting funds from regional governments to help pay for a new, $12.5-million angioplasty centre.

The Hôtel-Dieu Grace Hospital foundation made a formal request for $3 million, pledged over five to 10 years, from the County of Essex at a county council meeting Wednesday night.

The hospital has already secured $5.2 million from individuals, community organizations and foundations. It will also seek funding from the City of Windsor and the Municipality of Chatham-Kent.

Windsor-Essex County desperately needs a stand-alone angioplasty centre, hospital spokeswoman Kim Spirou said in her presentation to the Essex council.

"Our region has the second-highest loss of life expectancy due to cardiovascular disease in Canada," Spirou said. "Needless to say, Windsor-Essex is a cardiac hot spot."

Hôtel-Dieu performed 434 angioplasties in 2008, a procedure that involves inserting a balloon into blocked arteries to restore blood flow and prevent heart attacks.

But a lack of facilities forced it transfer another 600 patients to London, Ont., Toronto and Detroit for cardiac care, Spirou said.

A new facility would allow the hospital "to provide care for everyone in need in our community," she said.

Rick Laporte, who almost died in 2007 when he had to travel to Detroit for cardiac care, is lobbying hard for a local angioplasty centre, saying 'we need to be able to take care of our own.' (CBC)

A personal plea

Rick Laporte wished the hospital would have had an angioplasty centre when he needed it in November 2007.

Laporte, the president of Canadian Auto Workers Local 444, was en route from Windsor to a hospital in Detroit for an emergency angioplasty when U.S. customs officials flagged the vehicle for a secondary inspection even though it had a police escort and a pre-clearance arrangement.

The secondary inspection took three to four minutes, during which time Laporte had to be revived twice by defibrillation.

"I died twice," Laporte, who is also on the hospital's board of directors, said at Wednesday's council meeting. "When it comes to heart attacks, minutes matter to the muscle.

"What I learned from this whole experience is that we need to be able to take care of our own, right here in Windsor and Essex," he said.

The angioplasty centre is just one part of a $78-million multi-faceted hospital expansion. If the foundation can raise enough money for the angioplasty centre, the provincial government is expected to fund the rest, which would include enlarging the emergency department, consolidating various other departments and improving infrastructure.