'Taskforce needed to reduce heart deaths'

A conference in Dublin today will hear that Ireland needs a National Taskforce to develop a strategy to reduce the number of people dying from heart disease every year.

This is just one of the suggestions which will be made at the first national conference on preventing Sudden Cardiac Death in Dublin City University today.

Heart disease kills about 6,000 people in Ireland every year.

It attacks everyone from the newborn to the elderly, and Cardiologist Dr Joe Galvin says that one in five of us will eventually die from cardiac problems.

Dr Joe Galvin says rapid reaction in the form of community-based cardiac response teams and having defibrillators close to hand are essential to saving lives in many cases.