14/09/2025
Bliss Care support the Torbay Heart Campaign.
Please share with family and friends who live in Torbay.
SAVE OUR CARDIAC UNIT AT TORBAY HOSPITAL
By Sally Allen-Gerard
Plans are afoot to close the cardiac unit at The Torbay Hospital and move it to the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital. If these plans go ahead, people will undoubtedly die as every minute counts when you have a heart attack.
Currently, if you have a heart attack in South Devon, the paramedics in the ambulance will do an ECG, which is sent in real time to the CATHLAB at Torbay Hospital. As soon as you arrive you will be taken straight to the cardiac unit for immediate treatment. Once the heart muscles are starved of oxygen they die, so probably a stent will be inserted to return blood flow to your heart. If you are not treated within a very short space of time, you may live but your heart will not be the same, and you may be left with severe impacts on your health.
Medical care should be as close as possible to the point of need. There is a “golden hour” from when you first have symptoms of a heart attack, to get to a hospital for treatment. At the moment that is Torbay Hospital. If, as suggested, cardiac services are moved to the RD&E, then the chances are survival are reduced dramatically and will no doubt end in the death of patients unable to reach treatment in the critical time span.
So, we have started The Heart Campaign to fight to save our life-saving cardiac department at Torbay Hospital, which is in the top four performing units in the country. Make no mistake, if we lose even a section of the department, ALL cardiology services will be affected, and then the rest of acute services at the hospital may fall like a pack of cards, and it will be reduced to a cottage hospital.
Just take a look at the map attached here. If you live in Torbay, we know very well that any heart attack patient would not survive the trip to Exeter, just imagine if you lived south of Dartmouth. Clearly there wouldn’t even be any point in phoning for an ambulance!
So PLEASE if there is any way you can get the word out to as many people as possible, we would appreciate it. ‘People Power’ is the way forward and although the campaign has been featured on television; on numerous occasions in Torbay Weekly and on social media, there are still thousands and thousands of the local population who are unaware.
To save lives we MUST SAVE our Torbay Hospital Cardiac Unit.
Follow us on our page ‘The Heart Campaign’ for daily updates.
