Wife 'prays everyday' for call to schedule husband's heart procedure
A woman has voiced concern for her husband’s health after he was placed on a waiting list for his heart procedure.
Breda Mac Coiligh called LiveLine to share with the nation the story about her husband’s condition and his wait to be treated.
Mrs Mac Coiligh’s husband suffers from atrial fibrillation or A-fib, a condition which affects the heart’s rhythm, beating rapidly and irregularly.
Mr Mac Coiligh was told that the wait list within the public system would be two years and has been on the list since the end of September 2016.
He is currently on medication called Cordarone, also known as Amiodarone, one of the side effects of which is shortness of breath.
“In the fifteen years that my husband has been suffering with it, never has the medication worked. They have always had to do a procedure called a cardioversion,” Mrs Mac Coiligh said.
She is worried that her husband, who has suffered seven cardioversions over a period of 15 months, will not be able to handle two years with the current condition with his breathing.
She was told by the hospital that they are now getting around to people on the waiting list since 2015.
Mrs Mac Coiligh estimated that the cost of covering her husband’s operation privately would be between €26,000 and €28,000 which she is now considering.
She explained that both she and her husband are pensioners and that €28,000 is the equivalent of a million euro to them.
The operation has a success rate of between 60 and 80 percent for a man of his age but at the moment Mr Mac Coiligh has no quality of life, relying on his wife to shower him.
Mrs Mac Coiligh stressed how she could not imagine life without her husband.
