A leading medic at the West Suffolk Hospital has given his backing to an appeal to raise £500,000 for a new cardiac unit at the site in Bury St Edmunds.
It’s come from Dr Liam Ring, who is a consultant cardiologist, who said the new unit, which is currently being built, would “make a big different to patients” being treated for heart complaints and will be “absolutely beautiful”.
The 39-year-old, who lives in Fornham All Saints with his wife Emma and daughters Maisie and Lily, sees dozens of patients over the course of the week at his twice weekly clinics, ward rounds and angiogrammes he performs.
He works alongside three other cardiologists at the hospital Dr Pegah Salahshouri, Dr Denis O’Halloran and Dr Mirella Marinescu, and has been at the West Suffolk since 2013.
He said: “The sort of things we will be able to offer when we get the unit are the things that almost every other hospital in the region is already doing.
“I think we give our patients really great service and we look after them really well but there’s a few things that could be done better as patients at present have to traipse to other hospitals. Although it doesn’t impact on their outcome, it could be a lot easier if you could come into your local hospital. We know our patients and by putting everything together in one place the new unit will provide joined up care which can only be of benefit to all.
“Everything will be a lot smoother and we can then take more control and people will feel a lot better. It’s better continuity for us and for the patients as well. Everything will be done a lot quicker and I mean a lot quicker. At the moment if we send somebody off for a pacemaker they may be waiting for three or four months, with the new unit it will potentially be just weeks. It will be a dramatic and positive change for our patients and their families.
“All the cardiology patients will be on the same unit and we will have more beds and everything will be much more seamless and I’m super excited about it. All the specialist teams will be there in the same place.”
The campaign is being run by the My WiSH Charity’s Every Heart Matters Appeal and aims to raise the money to build a brand new cardiac diagnostic unit at the hospital.
The West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust is investing £5.2m in developing a state of the art cardiac suite that will provide quicker access to more treatments, but the £500,000 the My WiSH Charity is hoping to raise will lead to the whole unit, which is currently fragmented on different floors, being brought together in one purpose-built centre.
If you would like to donate to the Every Heart Matters Appeal you can do so by going to Justgiving.com/ehma or text EHMA17 £10 to 70070.
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