![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/000fabc7-614.jpg\"\/)
\nThe Mater Hospital has carried out five such procedures since it began them last May<\/p>\n
A man has described as “black and white” his transformation after undergoing a new heart procedure at the Mater Hospital in Dublin.<\/p>\n
The hospital described the procedure as a “major advancement in cardiac care” which it can now carry out for patients who are considered too high-risk for conventional open-heart surgery.<\/p>\n
Derek Toomey from Finglas in Dublin was diagnosed in 2023 with a severely narrowed, calcified mitral valve.<\/p>\n
He had been suffering from low energy and loss of breath, with the simplest of tasks becoming a challenge.<\/p>\n
“I couldn’t do a full set of stairs without stopping,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Getting dressed in the morning, putting socks on, bending down trying to tie up shoelaces\u2026 I couldn\u2019t breathe. It was ridiculous,” he said.<\/p>\n
The 62-year-old was told a conventional operation carried too great a risk due to severe underlying lung disease.<\/p>\n
Life carried on, until three months ago, when he was contacted by the Mater and offered the procedure, which he underwent in June.<\/p>\n
The operation a success, he says that within three days he was walking around the hospital without stopping.<\/p>\n
“The transformation has been like black and white,” he said.<\/p>\n
It has given him a new lease of life and he has returned to work.<\/p>\n
\nThe Mater Hospital has carried out five such procedures since it began them last May<\/p>\n
“I can now walk as far as I want to walk. The only side effect at the moment is tiredness, but that is because I didn\u2019t do anything for seven weeks.”<\/p>\n
The procedure, a percutaneous mitral valve replacement, involves inserting a new mitral valve through a catheter tube through a vein in the groin.<\/p>\n
The operation is less invasive than typical heart surgery where the chest has to be opened through the breast bone.<\/p>\n
As well as being less invasive, medical experts say it also has a significantly shorter recovery time.<\/p>\n
The hospital has said that for some patients with mitral valve disease whose overall health means conventional surgery would carry a high level of risk, it offers a route to treatment where previously there was none.<\/p>\n
The Mater has carried out five such procedures since it began them last May.<\/p>\n
Professor Ivan Casserly, who leads the multidisciplinary team at the Mater, said the procedure marks a significant step in cardiac care here.<\/p>\n
“Until now, patients with significant mitral valve disease who weren\u2019t well enough for open-heart surgery had very few options left to them,” he said.<\/p>\n
“This procedure gives us a new way to treat the condition without opening the chest and for patients it means a much faster recovery, being back on their feet within days rather than months.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man has described as “black and white” his transformation after undergoing a new heart procedure at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597668,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-597876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}