The Hospital: Life on the Line

Fifty-four-year-old Andy was admitted to the cardiac unit nearly two months ago after collapsing at home from a major heart attack. The team have battled to repair his failing heart, but the only thing that will save him is a heart transplant. Now he and his partner of 25 years, Shabana, must wait for a suitable doner heart to become available. Meanwhile though, Andy's specialist team is running out of options for ways to keep his heart pumping.

The hospital's specialist heart transplant team don't just treat patients before and during surgery – they look after them for a lifetime after. Sixty-one-year-old Steve had a heart transplant 13 years ago after becoming incredibly ill with heart failure. The heart transplant has given him a whole new lease of life – and now he's been able to get back to the big passion in his life: competitive cycling.

Another long-term patient is 27-year-old Rebecca, who was born with a condition where one of the chambers in her heart doesn't work properly. She has come in with some worrying symptoms. Rebecca needs on operation to change the batteries in her pacemaker, which keeps her heart beating regularly. But she's been suffering from breathlessness due to a build-up of fluid in her body, which could be a sign of heart failure. It's a worrying time for her fiancé Steph and her mum June.

In this episode 60-year-old Margo, who has a lifelong heart condition which was first discovered when she was five, is in urgent need of life-saving surgery to fix a faulty heart valve. She must undergo a complex five-hour operation in which surgeon Chuck Maclean and his team have to stop Margo's heart before they can fix the problem.

Donald, 78, needs an operation to implant a defibrillator to control a dangerous heart rhythm. But the procedure may have to be put on hold as he collapsed overnight, causing a head injury. He now needs a CT scan to find out if there's been any bleeding within his brain.

Forty-seven-year-old Linda was born with Marfan syndrome, a rare condition that affects her heart. She has still managed to turn her passion for horse riding into a career, but her condition could trigger a life-threatening emergency at any moment.

Geoff, 86, has had a fascinating career flying planes, but now he's at risk of heart failure. Open heart surgery is too risky for a man of his age, so Dr Angie Ghattas plans to repair his heart valve with a non-surgical procedure, inserting a tiny clip up an artery.

Around 20% of the UK's heart transplants take place at the NHS Golden Jubilee every year. 48-year-old Joanna thought she was coming down with Covid, but she soon discovered she was in serious trouble, on the brink of heart failure. Now she urgently needs a heart transplant, but after two failed attempts to find her a viable heart, Joanna's health takes a dramatic turn for the worse.

Some of the Heart Hospital's patients have lived with a heart condition all their lives. Social work student Hayley has a rare condition called Tetralogy of Fallow. It means that at the tender age of just 21, she's now facing seven hours of open-heart surgery to replace one of her heart valves. It's an agonising time for both her and her parents.

Retired heating engineer Chris moved to Scotland for a change of lifestyle with his wife Sharon and daughter Anna, after he had a heart attack six years ago. He's been suffering from coronary artery disease and now needs major heart surgery, but at his pre-op appointment, Surgeon Zahid Mahmood decides the surgery is now urgent.

Robert, 79, is airlifted to Clydebank's Golden Jubilee University National Hospital after a heart attack and Dr Stuart Hood and his team must quickly find and release the blockage in the patient's narrowed artery that is starving his heart of blood and oxygen. Seventeen-year-old Katie had a heart transplant, but suffered a series of life-threatening complications post-transplant and has been in ICU for 106 days, while Daniel, 63, had major surgery five years ago to replace a heart valve, but a devastating bacterial infection is causing his heart to fail.