NHCS Heart To Heart Fund

Helping Our Patients

Heart disease is a lifelong condition for most patients. In order to sustain their lives, they require either:

medication or
implanted devices or
combination of both

However, patients with advanced heart failure can only rely on a suitable heart transplant for survival. Their heart condition deteriorates to a point where no amount of medication or surgical intervention is sufficient.

Donor hearts are scarce in Singapore therefore many of these patients need to be fitted with a mechanical heart assist device (an artificial heart) as a last resort. The device helps patients in the following ways by:

taking over function of severely ailing heart
allowing them to resume their normal lives while waiting for a heart transplant

According to records, young patients at only 14 years old have been fitted with a mechanical heart assist device. The device costs around S$160,000 before subsidy, and financially needy patients have to rely on your generosity through the NHCS Heart To Heart Fund for support.

Patients who are at high risk of sudden cardiac death also benefit from the Heart To Heart Fund. Patients usually go through this process:

sudden cardiac death process

Fortunately, such tragedies can be prevented with the implantable cardiac defibrillators (ICDs) that are designed to restore a heart’s normal rhythm with a small electric shock. The cost of an ICD ranges from S$7,000 onwards before subsidy, and your kind support to the NHCS Heart To Heart Fund will help save more patients from sudden cardiac death.

Helping Research

Research takes time and resources to bloom into meaningful discoveries that will one day become revolutionary treatments for heart disease.

An estimated S$2 million is needed each year to drive our research efforts in cardiovascular medicine. NHCS’ research arm, the National Heart Research Institute Singapore, aims to shed light on how heart disease and their treatments work on Asian patients as current research literature mainly focuses on Caucasian populations.

One of the key areas our research scientists are working on is the study of inherited cardiac conditions that lead to heart failure and sudden cardiac death. The findings will help in the creation of better diagnostics and treatments for these heart conditions which tend to strike younger patients. These research breakthroughs will potentially save many young precious lives from dying from premature deaths.

Why Give