Renowned cardiac surgeon Albert Fenech was found lifeless in his home with ECG leads still attached to his chest, his family have revealed as they opened up about his life and death to Times of Malta.

They said that as he was alone at home, he must have felt symptoms of a heart attack and tried to perform an ECG test on himself but could not finish it before the attack killed him.

“It is tragic and ironic that he saved so many lives of people who were in that same situation but wasn’t able to save himself when it happened to him,” his older sister Priscilla said.

Professor Fenech, one of Malta’s top cardiologists and a former MP, died on December 28, aged 70.

He was loved by colleagues and adored by patients for his charisma and the dedication and passion with which he performed his work.

Fenech was known as ‘the singing cardiologist’ because he was known to sing and play his patients’ favourite music as he operated on them.

Simone Micallef, a cardiovascular psychologist and Fenech’s partner of 18 years, recalled the last time she spoke to him on the phone on the eve of his death, shortly before they went to bed.

They were not living together during the pandemic because they both dealt with very vulnerable patients and were very careful not to take unnecessary risks.

They spoke on the phone every night before going to sleep and again first thing in the morning, she said. That night, Fenech had a cold and told her he was feeling fatigued.

“That night he told me he might sleep in the following morning. So, when he didn’t call that the morning, I thought he was still asleep,” his partner recalled.

She was constantly wary that something might happen to him but he always told her she should not worry, and that if he doesn’t pick up, it is probably because he is showering or seeing a patient.

“When I had still not heard from him at 10am, I really began to worry. I called his phone for half an hour and then I called Priscilla, his sister.”

Eight years his senior, his sister lives next door to him and has a key to his house. She said she had just returned home from an appointment that morning when she and her daughter learnt Simone was trying to reach her brother.

“At that moment my heart skipped a beat and I immediately knew something had happened to Albert,” Priscilla said.

“I had spoken to him the day before. I knew he had a cold and I offered to cook him some chicken soup, because they say it’s good for colds. But he refused, saying he had a lot of food in the fridge.

“Later that day, I felt something bad might happen to him. And I was right, because that was my last conversation with him. And when the next morning I learnt he wasn’t answering his phone I thought, ‘oh, here it goes’.”

Priscilla and her daughter walked into his house, calling his name and looking in all the rooms.

“I called ‘Albert, Albert’, but as he was a bit deaf I thought he wasn’t hearing me. Obviously, he couldn’t hear me,” she said.

“My daughter went looking into his bedroom and I went into the bathroom, and I saw him there, dead on the floor. I never believed I would see him the way I did.”

Fenech’s family say he was diabetic but he never indicated he had any other health problems and had seemed completely fine.

“Albert constantly wanted to give to others, to protect them, and he never wanted to show people he was not OK. He would never put anyone in discomfort to show them he was not in a good place.

“He was excellent at hiding his feelings,” said his partner Simone.

If it had only happened when he was at hospital

Priscilla and her daughter knew he had passed away the moment they saw him on the floor. Incidentally, that is when his phone rang. It was his cousin Thomas Fenech, an ophthalmologist.

“At that very minute my heart stopped,” Thomas Fenech recalled.

“To me, cousin Albert was everything. He was larger than life. We all looked up to him because he was great, sportive, intelligent. I couldn’t believe it, because even though he was diabetic, he was still very active, working and seeing patients.”

Thomas and his wife Ann Fenech rushed over.

“We found him in the bathroom, with ECG chest leads on, so he must have been feeling something,” he said.

“I believe he felt symptoms of a heart attack, maybe chest pains, and he was trying to do an ECG test on himself, because he had a portable ECG machine. Probably he wanted to have a look at the ECG, but from the position we found him, he probably had an immediate cardiac arrest.

“He spent so much time in hospitals tending to patients. If it had only happened when he was at hospital, he would have found immediate help. But he was alone at home.”

Albert had a tremendous sense of humour, Ann recalled. The last time she spoke to him a week before, he was joking and full of life.

“I don’t think he suffered though. It was so sudden, that I don’t think he felt much pain,” said Thomas.

Fenech’s family describe him as a generous, inclusive, dedicated, gentle giant full of energy and love.

“The biggest thing I learnt from Albert was how to love someone unconditionally, because he loved like that,” said his partner Simone, who met him in 1989, when they both worked in the UK.

“Me and him, we had a naturally deep, spiritual connection. We laughed and cried together and we were extremely close. He used to tell me ‘we’ll never separate, we’ll never be apart’. And he’s right, we’re never going to be apart because I constantly feel him here with me.

“He had love and passion for everything he did and everyone he met. I immediately took to Albert,” she said.

“I admired his incredible intelligence and the way in which he excelled at his job. He pushed boundaries, he went above and beyond for his patients, he made them laugh and he made them, the older ones especially, feel like a thousand dollars.”

“He was married to his job and he did everything for his patients, even when the tides were against him,” Priscilla said.

“Lately, since 2013, he was being prevented from doing his job well. I feel disgusted at the way he was treated by the authorities, and it obviously took a toll on him.”

Fenech remained one of Mater Dei Hospital’s top cardiologists until 2015, when he was told he had to make way for younger cardiologists.

Back then he was an MP but quit parliament the following year, when he took up a job with Vitals Global Healthcare, the company handed a concession to run three state hospitals.

Vitals told Fenech they wanted him to run new cardiac units within St Luke’s and Gozo General Hospital.

But those promises never materialised, and in an interview just a week before his death, Fenech said the plan was “another white elephant” and that the hospitals deal had “bamboozled” people.

Fenech had returned to Malta from an illustrious career in the UK in 1995, when, with fellow cardiac surgeon Alex Manche, he co-founded the cardiology department within local public healthcare and carried out the very first operation at Mater Dei Hospital – an angiogram – in 2007.

“He wanted to give the level of care he was giving to patients in the UK to patients in Malta. So they wouldn’t have to travel to the UK for heart procedures. They had really pushed the boundaries,” said Ann Fenech.

“We have a responsibility to keep his energy going. That is what his legacy should be – his energy must keep going through us,” Simone concluded.