Southcoast to open cardiac surgery program

FALL RIVER — Southcoast Hospitals Group has received approval from the Massachusetts
Department of Public Health to begin a cardiac surgery program to an area of the
state where the incidence of disease is highest and access poorest, hospital officials
said. Southcoast’s cardiac surgery program will be based at Charlton Memorial
Hospital in Fall River and will be operated in partnership with New England Medical
Center in Boston. Hospital officials said that heart disease is particularly problematic
in the Fall River and New Bedford areas, where in 1998 mortality from heart disease
was 18 percent higher than the Massachusetts average. Hospital officials said
that a growing elderly population has caused the rise in heart disease, noting
that the number of residents in the area with heart disease is 24 percent higher
than the Massachusetts total.