Watch the informative "HEALTH FORUM" video below
(Click the "PLAY" button to begin)
Heartbeat International is about LIFE. Each year more than one million people die or live a compromised life because they need but cannot afford a cardiac pacemaker. These one million people live in countries without adequate social structures to provide expensive technologies such as pacemakers.
Heartbeat International, a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Tampa, Florida, is the world's premier provider of free, cardiac pacemakers, implantable defibrillators and medical care to needy patients around the world.
Heartbeat International provides these devices through approved distribution centers referred to as Pacemaker Banks. Heartbeat International also provides state-of-the-art educational programs to participating volunteer physicians, assuring competence with rapidly evolving pacemaker and defibrillator technology and clinical indications.
Pacemaker Banks are comprised of qualified and experienced physicians, an appropriately equipped and staffed hospital, and a local Rotary club. Pacemaker Banks are so designated only after completing an application process, meeting requirements, and agreeing to operating principles. Participating physicians identify patients in need of pacemaker or defibrillator therapy and, if there is an indication of economic hardship, refer the patient for economic assessment by the sponsoring Rotary club. If the Rotary club verifies the economic hardship, the patient is approved to receive a new cardiac pacemaker or defibrillator, as well as the physician care and hospital services at "no cost" to the patient. Importantly, local Pacemaker Banks also provide free follow-up care to carefully monitor the pacemaker or defibrillator performance, make adjustments as needed, and recommend replacement as the battery nears depletion.
The pacemaker industry donates the technology that Heartbeat International "matches" to the medically and economically needy people of the world; and physicians, hospitals and Rotarians volunteer/donate their services and/or facilities. Heartbeat International maintains strict patient selection controls, requires prompt patient implant and follow-up reports, and operates databases to monitor the location and patient recipients of all donated equipment. More importantly, Heartbeat International looks upon its Pacemakers as Peacemakers. By uniting physicians and their patients in a common crusade against heart disease, goodwill, friendships and understanding is fostered; thereby making the world a more peaceful place.
When you see a baby grow and thrive because of a donated pacemaker and medical care, or see the smiling face of the parents, cultural barriers are stripped down and replaced with compassion. Deep down inside your heart YOU KNOW AND FEEL goodwill and understanding breathing harmoniously with the renewed life.
Without the Heartbeat International pacemaker program many of the targeted population would die needlessly.
Learn more by watching the informative video below.