With this in mind Swansea University Sports Village members have shown they are all heart by raising funds to enable Welsh Hearts to run a heart screening event on Saturday 18 February and to help raise funds for the charity.

The heart screening will take place during the day at the Sports Centre in the Swansea University Sports Village, Sketty Lane.  The screening is a closed event specifically for students, staff and leisure centre members between the ages of 18 and 35. Around 100 people have been booked in on the day – each person having an ECG test and an Echocardiogram if required.

The cardiac screening fundraising kicked off with a staff member and partner completing the Red Bull 400 fitness event in Germany. Many different fundraising fitness events followed on from Disco Spin sessions, charity Zumba classes and a Fitness Fiesta which involved over 2 hours of back to back fitness classes. Charity dodgeball tournaments, in which University students & staff entered teams, have also been held.   

The sports centre staff have also completed activities to raise funds - completing a Cyclathon in which where staff and students continuously cycled throughout the working day. Donations of £145 were made by users of the sports village that day.

Some of the Swansea University sports clubs have also been getting involved with the fundraising – the Ladies Hockey club are completing the equivalent of 4 Ironman events with each team member having to complete a set distance in the activities of swimming, cycling and running. The Volleyball club also donated the proceeds of a recent fundraising tournament to the cause.

The charity Welsh Hearts Calonnau Cymru have arranged the event in partnership with Swansea University and the screening will be delivered by Swansea University spin-out company Cardiac Health Diagnostics.

Cardiac Health Diagnostics Ltd entered into a partnership with Welsh Hearts to deliver a new heart screening service throughout Wales which was launched in May 2016.  

The “ Heart Screening Wales” programme aims to raise awareness of undiagnosed heart conditions by providing easily accessible screening services to communities in Wales.   

Event organiser Leanne Brake from the Swansea University Estates team said:

 “Saturday’s screening event is a great opportunity to show the vital work Welsh Hearts are doing in the community, to give something back to the users that make the sports centre the success it is and an opportunity to recognise the fundraising efforts of our University for Welsh Hearts – the Heart Charity for Wales. “

• This * BHF estimate for Wales is based on the national frequency shown in Papadakis, Sharma et al. “The magnitude of sudden cardiac death in the young: a death certificate-based review in England and Wales.” Europace 2009 Vol.11, No.10, p1353-1358