Abstract: . . .  Page 5 mission statement is to find a long term cure for heart failure and meantime to encourage the use of mechanical devices that assist the heart . Since having the heart pump fitted on the 20 th June, 2000, Peter is now the longest- surviving mechanical heart patient in the world. He has become a world wide personality in the cardiac community and a living exhibit of the treatment he has had. Although in the UK all the operations so far have taken place in NHS hospitals, the funding for them has been private. Mr Westaby is hopeful that he can carry out 40 more heart pump operations, which should be enough to convince the NHS that spending 100,000 per operation is a good use of its resources. 1 The pump operation is more expensive than a transplant, but with a replacement heart , there is the cost of anti-rejection drugs, as mentioned earlier in the article. The important issue, however, is that there are simply not enough hearts. We do around 250 transplants a year. A similar number dont get ops and may eventually die. Behind them are thousands of patients who are simply not considered fit enough to go on to the transplant programme, and their only future is death, in weeks or months 2 1 Daily Mail, March 29 th 2005 source: Martyn Halle 2 Artificial Heart Fund: www.ahf.org.uk  . . .
--3000,1,1500,1613,15528