8:20pm Friday 3rd July 2009
By Claire Lomax
Every March Mohammed Aslam sends flowers to the people he calls the angels who saved his life.
The recipients are the cardiology team headed by his consultant cardiologist Dr Steven Lindsay and all the staff on ward 22, the cardiac ward, at Bradford Royal Infirmary.
The month is the anniversary of a heart attack in 2000 that saw him ‘die’ for two minutes before a crash team brought him back.
“I spent three weeks of my life on ward 22 and if I can do something for them I will – I don’t care what it is,” said Mr Aslam.
And as managing director of the successful Aagrah Group, that ‘something’ is something special.
Last year the group’s 26th annual charity dinner raised £80,000 to be split between the cardiac ward at BRI and the British Heart Foundation and the group has recently handed over a cheque for £25,000 to the British Heart Foundation’s Beating Hearts in Bradford Appeal, which is aiming to raise £105,000 to buy a 3D echocardiograph machine for BRI.
It will enable doctors to carry out specialised heart scans on patients using the most up-to-date technology available. It is particularly needed in Bradford as there is such a high prevalence of heart disease in the district.
This is partly due to a large South Asian population who are more at risk of developing heart disease.
The chairman of the Aagrah Group, Mohammed Sabir, has also spent time on ward 22 following a heart attack, and Mr Aslam says heart problems do run in the family.
“Heart disease is high in the Asian community – it is more because of genes than anything else,” he said. “BRI is right in the middle of the Asian community in Bradford and it is our duty to look after our hospital and not just rely on funding from the Government because it is us who will benefit.”
Mr Aslam, 55, was working in his office in Pudsey in 2000 when he began to suffer severe pain in his left arm. He managed to find time one last smoke of his pipe – the last time he ever smoked – before being take to BRI by ambulance on the insistence of his niece, who is a doctor.
After a week on ward 22 he was about to be discharged when he went into cardiac arrest. The crash team was called and saved his life.
He later had surgery at BRI, when consultant cardiologist Chris Morley, fitted him with an internal defibrillator, which now works to continuously monitor his heart and will save his life by shocking it right away if he has a heart attack.
He was the first patient in Bradford to benefit from a defibrillator and has had to be admitted to hospital a few times since but says every single time he has been well looked after.
He said: “Dr Lindsay said I should be careful with my diet but he told me to enjoy life, be sensible and don’t think about it – that is the best medicine he gave me.
“They really deserve help from the community. I have to pay them back and none of my family object to supporting them.”
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