Barry’s record is all thanks to the Downe

Barry’s record is all thanks to the Downe

18 February 2015

WITHOUT the Downe Hospital, Barrie Beswick would not have been walking in Saturday’s rally or lived to become the oldest surviving heart transplant patient in Ireland.

The 71 year-old Downpatrick man has beaten both the odds and the records since undergoing the lifesaving surgery in the summer of 1992.

Although the operation, in which he received the heart of a 17 year-old girl, prolonged his life, it was 10 years previously, in the Downe’s accident and emergency unit, that Barrie first cheated death.

He jokes that he has since become a “season ticket holder” of the local hospital, which he values as a “home from home” with the “best staff” the NHS has to offer.

A former ambulance driver, Barrie’s story begins in 1981 when he enjoyed lunch with his colleagues in a Downe Hospital staff room.

Experiencing suspicious chest pains, that his friends at first suspected was indigestion, Barrie decided to walk over to the accident and emergency unit to be checked out.

The 37 year-old never made it to admissions. Although Barrie has no memory of what happened, he now knows that he collapsed on arrival and was resuscitated by staff whom he credits with his survival.

Over the next 10 years, Barrie became a regular in-patient of the hospital’s coronary care unit as he battled heart failure.

He says the Downe once again changed his life for the better in 1991 when a forward-thinking doctor recommended him for transplant.

In July of that year, just two days after being approved for the surgery, which he was warned may never happen due to difficulties with finding a match, Barrie received a call to say a heart had been found.

“It was amazing the way it happened because I had just telephoned police the day before to tell them I had just been put on the transplant list and to ask that they take me to the airport if an organ was ever found,” he said.

“I was told it could take a month, a year or that it might never happen.

“I was not expecting anything anytime soon. In fact when I received the call I had drunk four cans of Guinness at a barbecue, which was possibly not the best pre-op I could have taken.”

Whisked to Aldergrove by police, who picked up a doctor en route, Barrie says he had little time to be nervous although he laughs when he recalls the jitters of his accompanying doctor who feared the flight on a single-engine plane.

The transplant operation was carried out that night and two days later Barrie was exercising in the hospital gym. “I felt immediately better,” he said.

“I did cry after the operation from pure emotion — it was happiness and pure relief.

“I am now 71 and am the oldest surviving patient in Ireland, I am quite proud of that.”

Barrie says he is so thankful to the Downe Hospital and its staff for saving his life, and improving its quality, that he recently collected 2,500 signatures on a petition to secure its future.

He says he is convinced the recent closure of the hospital’s coronary care unit will be detrimental to the Downe’s service and does not relish 

the prospect of being admitted to Belfast where he believes patients are “just a number,” he says.

“The decision-makers do not seem to know how the other half lives.”

“People like me have such appreciation for our local service. It adds to our quality of life.

“I am thankful to the Downe for saving my life. That is why it was important for me to be at Saturday’s rally.”