A pensioner who had a life-saving mini defibrillator which can shock his heart into a normal beating rhythm - in what is believed to be the first procedure of its kind in a public hospital in Munster - has urged people not to avoid hospital appointments or planned surgeries over fears about COVID-19.
Joseph O’Neill, 74, from Moyasta, County Clare, received a subcutaneous ICD, cardioverter-defibrillator, at the Cath lab, University Hospital Limerick, last October.
Mr O’Neill suffered a mild heart attack in 2010 and it was recommended by doctors that he receive a different type of ICD device “the kind where the wires travel along the veins and up to the heart” which is traditionally used in heart attack patients.