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‘Last Christmas I needed a heart’

John Meikleham was on his way into work in the cardiac surgical unit in Belfast when he had a massive heart attack at the front door of the hospital.

He needed a heart transplant and spent last Christmas in a hospital in Newcastle upon Tyne waiting for a donor.

As this was during the pandemic he spent it alone with no visitors or family.

John is one of about 225,000 people in Northern Ireland who are living with some sort of heart or circulatory diseases.

The British Heart Foundation is currently funding groundbreaking stem cell heart failure research at Queen's University Belfast.

Meanwhile, John is back home this Christmas with his family and his new heart.

Video journalist: Niall McCracken

25 December 2022

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