Patients with a weak heart have an extra weapon to help fight their disease after a donation of an intra-aortic balloon pump worth more than €40,000.

The pump is an inflated special balloon placed inside the patient at precisely the right time, giving an extra beat

The pump, donated by Lyndon Hadley-Coates and consultant surgeon Alex Manchè, on behalf of Malta Heart Foundation, is used to keep the patient alive while waiting for recovery in post heart surgery and, or during, angioplasty.

It is actually an inflated special balloon placed inside the patient at precisely the right time, giving an extra beat and improving the circulation.

Health Minister Joe Cassar thanked the foundation and those who supported it during the fund-raising campaign – the Alf. Mizzi Foundation, Strickland Foundation and Mediterranean Bank.

The pump has saved over three million lives worldwide since its invention by Adrian Kantrowitz in 1967. Since its foundation in 2009, the Malta Heart Foundation has worked on raising awareness on prevention of heart disease and donated external defibrillators to the law courts, national football stadium, Ta’ Qali market, Manoel Theatre and Arka Foundation while also providing exercise machines to two transplant patients.

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