Some Valentine’s Days are spent at a candlelit dinner with that special someone, but for Jeanette and Allan Wallace they wanted to talk about their heart — more specifically, their heart health.
The Wallaces recruited Heart Matters Campaspe co-ordinator Anita Stirling to deliver a free heart-health education session to their loved ones at their home in Echuca.
Ms Stirling, a paramedic based in Kyabram, said she was thrilled by the invite.
“To do this on Valentine’s Day was all Jeanette’s idea,” Ms Stirling said.
“She wrote a gorgeous email to me about how we should care about our own heart on Valentine’s Day as well as everyone else’s.”
Ms Stirling said the Campaspe region had been identified as a problem area for heart disease.
She has been delivering information sessions to community groups and organisations since March last year.
“The Campaspe region is the region with the highest rate of heart attacks in Victoria, combined with some of the lowest usage of ambulance services when having heart attack symptoms,” Ms Stirling said.
“Ninety per cent of the emergency helicopters that land in Campaspe are not because of car crashes, they’re because someone has had a heart attack.
“These education sessions are critical for educating people about the warning signs and symptoms.”
The Heart Matters Project is a pilot research program that has been running since March 2022.
Mrs Wallace was one of the people who attended the first Campaspe Heart Matters session that month.
One of her motivations for hosting a session was because one of her friends had had a heart attack recently and she did not recognise the warning signs early.
“As we get older I just think it’s really important to refresh ourselves on what to look out for and what to do,” Mrs Wallace said.
After the project ends in March, the Heart Matters co-ordinators will collate the data and feedback they have received and will then use that information to advocate for a permanent project.
Ms Stirling explained that one of the women in attendance had been to one of the earlier Heart Matters information sessions where she was given a magnet with warning signs to look out for.
“One day she started experiencing symptoms, so she grabbed the magnet that I passed around in that session, realised that she was having a heart attack, and called an ambulance immediately,” she said.
“It just goes to show that these sessions can be the difference between saving a life.”
Ms Stirling will continue to run information sessions until the end of March.
If you have any queries about the Heart Matters Project or want to organise a group information session, email Anita Stirling at anita.stirling@heartfoundation.org.au or phone her on 0437 996 092.