Hi, my name is Isabel and on the 17th September, I am running the Belfast City Half Marathon in aid of the Cardiac Assessment unit which is based in the Omagh Primary Care Complex. On 20th October 2011, my daddy died suddenly of a heart attack. He had presented himself to the Cardiac Unit in the old Tyrone County Hospital and received the upmost care as the nursing & medical teams tried everything to save his life. Unfortunately, he passed away aged 37 leaving behind a wife and 4 young children under the age of 10. Fast forwarding on 12 years, and I have just recently graduated as an adult nurse and have been working for nearly 4 months now in the Cardiac Unit in the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast. Ever since starting my job back in April, the importance of having these units in rural areas like Tyrone and Fermanagh has been so very evident. These rural units like the CAU are one of the stepping stones to getting patients discharged or transferred to the likes of my current ward for further treatment and without them, many lives would be lost. This unit treats patients with chest pain, heart attacks, palpitations (fast heart rate), faints and shortness of breath. Patients can self-present or be referred from GPs or other hospital departments. The cardiac assessment unit is run by nurses who are experienced in cardiology, all of whom have been trained in Advanced Life Support. Between them they manage to discharge 90% of patients who might otherwise have to go to Emergency Departments in the region of 30 miles away. With the current crisis surrounding the Save the SWAH initiative, is imperative that we fight for our smaller units. In the event a member of my family or community suffered a heart attack, the next major cardiac unit from my home address would be Altnagelvin or Craigavon, both over an hour away. This is why it is so important to have services like the CAU in Omagh, to help stabilise and then transfer patients to the South West Acute Hospital or Altnagelvin Cardiology Units or other hospitals within the province for definitive medical care requiring inpatient admission. I am in no means a runner, but once I signed up back in March for the Belfast Half Marathon, I knew I wanted to do it for a good cause. We have fundraised many times as a family in the past for the cardiac unit, but I wanted to make my own contribution to acknowledge the amazing work these nurses and doctors do every single day in our own local hospital❤️
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