It's one of the most common surgeries in the world and has been performed for more than 30 years, but an angioplasty has only just been performed for the first time in the Northern Territory.
"We are behind but not any longer as of the last couple of days," Health Minister Robyn Lambley told reporters at Royal Darwin Hospital on Thursday.
"It's a major milestone."
Robert Motzel, 65, this week became the NT's first angioplasty patient, with a small metal scaffold called a stent now propping open an artery that had been 90 per cent narrowed.
"I can't understand why it hasn't been done sooner (in the NT)," he said.
Up until 2009, the Australian Cardiac Society guidelines wouldn't allow angioplasties to be performed in remote places, said Dr Robert Parker, vice-president of the NT's Australian Medical Association.
The territory wasn't able to fulfil certain requirements due to its isolation, such as organising emergency transport for people who suffered complications.
"There is a population base for a cardio-thoracic surgeon between Darwin and Alice Springs, and with the high level of morbidity in the indigenous population with rheumatic heart disease and the like, there's probably enough work for one," Dr Parker told AAP.
"At the moment it's more economic to send people who need bypass down to southern capitals; at some stage it might become more economic to actually run the service in the territory."
Darwin is now one of the most remote locations to perform angioplasties, said Dr Marcus Ilton, chief cardiologist at Royal Darwin Hospital.
He says it can now be performed without the back-up of a full cardio-thoracic surgical capability due to improved technology.
The NT government has committed $6.5 million to the program, and weekly for the next six months a medical team from Adelaide will be flying up to train local staff in the procedure.
"This is the beginning of a new era: bringing high-end, top technology services to the territory and providing a service that people expect everywhere in Australia, but, until yesterday, had not been available here," Dr Ilton said.
Mr Motzel says he's looking forward to the day Royal Darwin Hospital can offer a full service of heart surgeries.
"It's a big move forward, but I think they need to take it another level," he said.
"Have heart surgery here as well. We really need it, because otherwise it's only half doing the job."
