Heartbeat: Wayne doing well after suffering cardiac arrest at GP surgery

December 10, 2021

It seemed like just another day for Wayne Taylor, who was attending his GP practice for an appointment to discuss a painful hip ailment. As he was waiting to be seen he started to feel unwell with a pain across his chest and back, and feeling hot he stepped outside to get some fresh air. Whilst there, his symptoms escalated and he rapidly felt very unwell.

However luckily for him, sharp eyed general practice staff from Great Bridge Partnership for Health recognised what was happening and called an ambulance. Wayne had a cardiac arrest and was resuscitated before being brought into City Hospital.

Dr Chetan Varma, Consultant Interventional Cardiologist explained: “Wayne is really very lucky that he was at his GP practice when this event happened to him. Our colleagues in primary care acted quickly to get emergency help to him so we could open up his two blocked blood vessels. Once that was done his blood pressure improved, and he was pain free and able to chat normally

“It is a great example of how primary and secondary care can work together for the benefit of patients. I rang my colleagues at the practice to tell them what a great job they had done to identify and get him shocked as he went into VF.” (Ventricular fibrillation (VF) is a condition in which your heart beats in an abnormal rhythm. It is an emergency condition that may be brought on by a heart attack.)