Demand for cardiac rehab spikes - as staffing numbers plummet

Heart patient Noel Flannery with his son Kenan, 22, and daughter, Kyra, 11.

Lifesaving rehabilitation for heart patients is in ‘absolute crisis’ and no hospital in Ireland has a full team in place to help them recover, the Irish Heart Foundation has warned.

The cardiac rehab (CR) waiting list for heart attack, stroke and heart failure patients has exceeded 2,800 – a 54% increase since 2013 – while staffing levels have plummeted by 40%.

The service is now being treated as an ‘optional add on’ in hospitals, according to the charity, which uncovered the damning statistics in joint research with the Irish Association of Cardiac Rehabilitation (IACR).

“This service was considered worldclass in 2005, but it's now in absolute crisis,” said Dr Angie Brown, the Irish Heart Foundation’s medical director. 

“HSE recruitment embargoes and chronic under-investment have stripped it bare. Nurses are being transferred to other work and not being replaced and even though it’s an essential service, none of our hospitals have all the expertise in place to deliver high-quality cardiac rehabilitation.” 

Dr Angie Brown, medical director of the Irish Heart Foundation. 

The research also showed that 77% of centres closed during the pandemic – most of them for over 12 weeks, despite the fact that CR reduces heart disease deaths by around 20%.

Properly-resourced CR is delivered through a dozen different disciplines, ranging from specialist nursing staff to pharmacists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, smoking cessation specialists and cardiologists.

A core element is monitored exercise training which helps patients get physically active again.

Psychological support also drives the improvements achieved by CR, but the data shows that only seven of the 35 cardiac rehabilitation centres surveyed have access to a psychologist while 12 centres surveyed did not have a physiotherapist.

Since 2010, the number of medical directors in the programme has fallen from 38 to 21, CR co-ordinators from 38 to 31 and dietitians from 36 to 24.

In addition, 40% of patients are waiting at least three months for CR, when they should be starting courses weeks after hospital discharge.

One patient who knows value of the service is Dubliner Noel Flannery, 52, who had seven stents inserted following a heart attack in March 2020.

Noel Flannery with his son Kenan in Rush beach, North Dublin.

The father-of-two went to a “dark place”, struggling to understand why it happened to him given his active lifestyle as a member of Cabra Kayak Club.

However, he was able to access pharmacists to advise him about medication, physio, dietitians and a psychologist at a cardiac rehabilitation centre at the Mater Hospital.

“It was absolutely brilliant. It was an eight-week course, two days a week and I’d be 100% behind it. 

"It helped me to move on; they were telling me ‘Noel this isn’t the end, it’s not your fault, you can get over it’.”