LVAD Tags and Patches

Another Batch Ready for St Vincent’s

Today we finished another small batch of LVAD tags and patches that will be heading over to St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney for patients living with an LVAD.

For people living with a Left Ventricular Assist Device, everyday situations can sometimes become unexpectedly complicated - particularly in emergencies where medical staff or first responders need to quickly understand what device someone has and how it’s managed.

These tags and patches are simple things, but they help clearly identify that a person is living with an LVAD and provide quick visual cues that can be incredibly important in the right moment. As someone who lived with this machine for 436 days, I was always worried that someone would think it was a laptop bag or something similar and try to remove it.

The transplant and mechanical heart support teams do extraordinary work every day, and if something as simple as a tag or patch can make life just a little easier for a patient, then it’s time well spent.

These will be donated to the hospital over the coming days and distributed to patients who may find them useful.

Sometimes the smallest objects carry the biggest meaning.