The waiting period between admission and surgery ranged from 2 hours to 96 hours with a mean of 28 hours in group 1, and ranged from 22 hours to 428 hours with a mean of 95 hours in group 2. The waiting period exceeded 24 hours in group 1 if the next day after admission was not a working day or the angiogram laboratory was not available for any reason. The ictus to surgery interval for both groups is shown in [table IV]. Amongst the 10 patients who died waiting for an angiogram or surgery, 7 deaths occurred within 3 days of admission [Table III]. The duration of hospital stay ranged from 5 to 39 days in group 1 with an average of 12 days, and 6 to 63 days in group 2, with an average of 16 days.