THE Heart Foundation of Jamaica yesterday said it needed to raise at least $30 million to expand its services to more Jamaicans suffering from heart disease.

Executive director Deborah Chen said the foundation was in the process of acquiring a new building next door to its 30 Beechwood Avenue location in Kingston, as its current office was bursting at the seams with patients.

She said it would cost approximately $80 million for the purchase and refurbishing of the new building, but added that the foundation had collected $50 million in donations and was hoping that corporate Jamaica would donate the balance. The donors include the National Commercial Bank, National Housing Trust, National Health Fund, Wysinco and Guardian Life.

“What we have done is taken a very bold step and we have purchased the building which is right next door to us,” she explained, during a function to honour donors to the foundation’s building development project at the Terra Nova Hotel in Kingston yesterday. “Sometimes we can’t even promote our services too much because we just cannot fit the patients, they are outside under a tent or under a tree,” Chen added.

With larger facilities, Chen said the foundation would be able to double its patient intake.

Last year the foundation screened 14,916 persons and Chen said they would be able to screen 30,000 persons by 2008 with the expansion.

She said the foundation also hopes to establish a cardiac disease prevention and rehabilitation programme aimed at helping heart disease patients to adopt healthy lifestyle practices. Additionally, the foundation will also introduce a resource centre for heart patients as well as the general public.

The new facility, Chen said, will also allow for a larger pharmacy that will be able to cater to 20,000 patients compared to the 9,000 that were served last year.

“Our prescription drugs are about 40 per cent cheaper than regular costs,” she said.

Yesterday, Dr Knox Hagley, the foundation’s chairman, said the initial focus of the Heart Foundation was to raise money to assist persons in need of cardiac surgery. This, however, has shifted to prevention measures.

“We have focused on various aspects of prevention,” he said. “Disease that has already established itself, but not yet come to their understanding and knowledge called secondary prevention; the whole point of secondary prevention is that if a disease can be detected at an early stage, measures can be put in place to minimise the impact of the disease on the individual.”

According to Hagley, the foundation also promotes the practice of tertiary prevention which involves encouraging good and effective management of the disease to minimise its impact in later life.

“Hopefully we need to move further on, in terms of helping people who have had the problems related to heart disease to guide them and to help with the process of what is known as rehabilitation,” Dr Hagley said. “This is one of the things that we are hoping that our new building will help us to achieve.”

Meantime, consultant cardiologist and foundation member Dr Hafeezul Mohammed reiterated that heart disease was a major cause of death in Jamaica. He said more women than men normally suffer from heart disease and estimated that it will cost over $4 billion to treat heart disease patients this year.