A U.S. Air Force veteran is grateful following life-saving emergency cardiac care delivered by Health City Cayman Islands (HCCI), a public-private effort of Ascension, Narayana Health and the government of the Cayman Islands.
Rod Linkous, a resident of Washington, was on a cruise celebrating his 80th birthday with his wife when he suffered a heart attack the evening before arriving at the port of George Town in Grand Cayman, capital of the Cayman Islands and home to HCCI, as relayed in a video on the HCCI website.
“This gentleman came to us as an emergency transfer from the cruise ship. He had developed chest pain while on the ship and was transferred to the general hospital. They diagnosed him to have a heart attack and referred him to us for the management,” said Dr. Ravi Kishore, Health City’s Chief interventional cardiologist and electrophysiologist.
The doctor explained that emergency angiography was performed to relieve a blockage in the patient’s main artery “We opened up the vessel and put in stents, and he is doing pretty well now,” Dr. Kishore said.
Linkous showered praise on the facility and the staff’s efficiency. “When I got here, Dr. Ravi met me,” he said. “He made me feel at ease with all the experience he had. Less than an hour later, I was in the cath theater, and they were doing an angiogram.”
“We’re just really grateful that we were sent to this hospital,” his wife, Donna Linkous, said. “We had no idea it existed. And it was such a great relief when we were met at the door, for me. I just felt like he was in excellent hands.”
Linkous, who said he visited the Caribbean to enjoy the warm weather and to celebrate his birthday, hopes to return to the Cayman Islands. “I’d like to come back and visit a couple of the doctors and a couple of the nurses, but not under the same condition,” he said.
