Heart Failure Clinic Saves Life for Katherine Sheffield

A new heart failure clinic at CHI St. Vincent focuses on treating all types of heart diseases.

It's helping patients get access to treatments that allow them to return to the activities they used to love to do.

Katherine Sheffield is a heart failure patient who turned to the clinic for help a year ago.

"I couldn't do any house work. I couldn't do any shopping. I was very active with my kids and grandkids, so this was very, very hard," she explains.

Sheffield has five children and eight grandchildren. She says she missed lots of ball games and other events. The 46-year-old couldn't walk across the room without being out of breath.

"Exhausted. I would sleep probably 14, 15 hours a day," she adds.

This lasted several months, after coming down with a flu in March 2015. In November, her blood pressure went through the roof.

"If it would've gone untreated, what would've happened?" asks Susanne Brunner.

"I would've died. I would've died of a heart attack," she responds.

Doctors told Katherine she had an enlarged heart and needed immediate treatment. She found out about the heart failure clinic at CHI St. Vincent, where she says doctors saved her life.

"Start and monitor the right medicine in a very aggressive way so that we can recover the heart muscle," explains Muhammad Waqas, director of the heart failure program.

Medication is a big part of the treatment process, one that needs monitoring on a weekly basis.

The clinic comes with state-of-the-art technology and devices to make sure the heart is pumping accurately.

"St. Vincent started this program because there is a huge need in the community," says Waqas.

"I feel blessed. God touched me through these doctors," Sheffield says.

The heart failure clinic launched three months ago. There are more than 60-thousand patients in the program.

Click here for more information about the program.