One-stop heart clinic to screen relatives of sudden adult death victims
Campaigners are raising up to €3 million for the rapid-access centre at Dublin’s Tallaght Hospital following a spate of sudden deaths of active teenagers and young adults.
Last weekend Limerick hurler Willie O’Brien, 28, and Limerick mother Noelle Ray, also 28, became the latest people to die from the condition.
Victims of SADS suffer from an undetected heart condition which can kill at any time. It can also run in families.
The Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY) campaign group is establishing a screening programme so relatives can quickly find out if they too are at risk.
Dublin mother Marie Greene lost her 15-year-old son Peter to SADS a decade ago and founded the campaign group to get better support for families.
With plans for a clinic at an advanced stage, she said: “We’re going to start off working with families at risk or with young people where there would be a concern with symptoms like dizziness, fainting, palpitations or chest pains.
“Our aim is that there will be rapid access for screening [for heart conditions] for people so they won’t hopefully be waiting months for screening.
“Families will be seen together and all the tests will be done at the same time, so they will know what they have to do next if they have a heart condition.”
They will be able to find out if they are in the clear or if they need to undergo surgery, take medication or make lifestyle changes.
The centre is set to open in January with a heart specialist at the helm. It is a joint venture between Dublin’s Tallaght and St James’s Hospital, Trinity College Dublin and CRY.
CRY campaigners believe SADS claims a life a week among the under-35s, with casualties including people who lead fit, healthy and active lives. High-profile casualties have included 24-year-old Tyrone GAA football captain Cormac McAnallen, Royal Armagh School rugby team captain John McCall and Kevin Quinn, a teenage hurler from Co Cork.
Meanwhile in Rooskey, Co Roscommon, villagers who raised €20,000 to buy their own defibrillators for heart attack victims revealed they had to pay 21% VAT on their mercy purchases.
But campaigner Eunice Langley said she was delighted the place had enough machines so every villager was within five minutes of help — including Justice Minister Michael McDowell, who has a holiday home nearby.
Ms Langley said: “An ambulance can take an hour to answer an emergency call yet the first minutes are crucial after a heart attack.
“A total of 60 people have been trained to use the machine, so if someone has a heart attack then we can respond quickly.”
