BANGOR – Because of opposition from Eastern Maine Medical Center, a hearing will be held next month on St. Joseph Hospital’s $1.5 million cardiac catheterization lab application to the Department of Human Services.

DHS’ hospital spending watchdog office, the Certificate of Need Unit, will schedule the public hearing for sometime during the first week of February in Bangor, said Bill Perfetto, CON director. A final decision from the state is expected to follow within a few weeks, he said.

On Tuesday, DHS Commissioner Kevin Concannon approved applications for cardiac catheterization labs from hospitals in Biddeford, Portland, Lewiston and Augusta. St. Joseph was also one of the applicants. A later application from The Aroostook Medical Center in Presque Isle is on another review track.

EMMC has argued that allowing St. Joseph to do the diagnostic procedure would detract from its own cardiac catheterization business.

In the procedure, which costs $3,000 at EMMC, a doctor inserts a flexible, hollow tube into an artery and slithers it toward the heart with the help of X-ray guidance to detect blockages and the narrowing of passageways.

EMMC currently serves patients from St. Joseph and its affiliated hospitals who need cardiac catheterization services. But St. Joseph said it can do cardiac catheterizations more cheaply and safely using the same doctors who perform the procedure at EMMC. St. Joseph views the procedure as a staple of medical service today – a “bread and butter” type service for a general hospital.

Since it first asked for permission in 1998 to build the lab, the hospital has been on a roller coaster. A preliminary CON report in 1999 said the additional Bangor unit was unnecessary. St. Joseph revised its application. Subsequently, the state was faced with lab applications from eight hospitals, and called a halt to the whole process. It then hired a consulting firm to recommend which applications should be approved and which should be denied.

When the report was issued last September, St. Joseph again came up short. EMMC officials were happy, but a reversal was in the works.

In November, Perfetto stunned EMMC officials and others by recommending approval of the St. Joseph request.

The cardiac catheterization lab volume forecasted by St. Joseph would exceed the minimum volumes specified in state guidelines, Perfetto wrote in his recommendation. EMMC hopes to make its case again at the public hearing before Concannon can issue his final decision. For about a week after the hearing, the CON unit will be accepting written comments, Perfetto said.