Gift from the heart

Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton (second right) checks out specialised equipment donated to the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) by Abigaye Smythe (second left), founder and managing director of I Have a Heart Foundation, on Thursday, as consultant cardiothoracic surgeon Dr Sunil Stephenson explains its function. Sharing in the moment is chief executive officer at UHWI Dr Sydney Powell. The equipment will give surgeons at the hospital the ability to perform minimally invasive open-heart surgeries. (Photo: Garfield Robinson) A cardiac patient facing her sixth surgery this December has donated US$4,000 in specialised equipment to the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI), directly upgrading its training resources and capabilities for minimally invasive open-heart surgery. Speaking at the handover ceremony of the medical equipment at UHWI on Thursday, Abigaye Smythe, founder and managing director of I Have a Heart Foundation, revealed that leading this initiative is her life’s purpose. Describing her connection to the project as lifelong, Smythe shared that she has battled heart disease since the age of seven, when she first began experiencing symptoms. At 19, Smythe was delivered life-altering news when she was diagnosed with arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy — the same disease that took her mother’s life. The rare genetic condition causes fat and scar tissue to replace healthy heart muscle, disrupting electrical signals and triggering abnormal heart rhythms. Since her diagnosis, the philanthropist has undergone five surgeries at UHWI, making this donation a profoundly personal milestone. “Because of my own journey, and understanding the fact that cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in Jamaica, I don’t advocate for heart disease patients from a distance. I understand what it means to be one [a cardiac patient], and I understand what it means to lose one. So this is my purpose. And that is why today is so meaningful,” she said. “I’m not simply donating equipment to a hospital, I’m giving back to an institution that has cared for me, from testing and diagnosis in 2011, through five surgeries between 2012 and 2019, several emergency room visits and hospitalisations in-between, and an institution that will care for me again in December when I undergo my sixth heart surgery. I am investing in my fellow heart disease patients. I’m also investing in my country, in Jamaica,” added Smythe. The donation builds on a partnership between the I Have a Heart Foundation, the Organisation for International Development, and a medical team from New York’s Montefiore Einstein Hospital. Since 2019, this partnership has provided more than $120 million in free open-heart surgeries at UHWI for 60 financially vulnerable patients. Smythe noted that while this collaboration has been highly beneficial for both the patients and UHWI, she realised the hospital still lacked the capacity to perform minimally invasive open-heart surgeries without foreign assistance. She highlighted this gap as the driving force behind her efforts to lobby for and secure the new equipment. “During the 2025 cardiac mission, the international medical team brought their specialised tools to perform minimally invasive open-heart surgery, and this resulted in the first such procedure being performed at UHWI, and possibly the first in Jamaica. They returned [home] and so did their equipment. And they came back in March 2026, for the mission. And when they performed the surgeries, and when they left, so did their equipment again,” she explained. Abigaye Smythe, founder and managing director of the I Have a Heart Foundation, shares her reason for donating specialised equipment to the University Hospital of the West Indies that will give surgeons the ability to perform minimally invasive open-heart surgery. (Photo: Garfield Robinson) “So I said, ‘Okay, I want us to be independent, I want us to have our own, I want us to be able to perform minimally invasive open-heart surgeries outside of the mission’. And that is where the begging began. Thanks to our sponsors, we were able to raise the money, and we turned that vision into a reality, and purchased the equipment,” Smythe explained. Looking ahead, she hopes this contribution will elevate care at UHWI, arguing that the island has no shortage of medical skill or talent but requires some help securing the tools to match that expertise. “I’m excited to see how this capacity, this capability, will continue to grow. Today is not simply a handover, it is an investment in Jamaican lives, in our health care system, our medical professionals, and the future of cardiac care. My hope is that one day a Jamaican will never have to ask, ‘Can this procedure be done in Jamaica?’ They will simply know that it can be done here, and it can be done here at the University Hospital of the West Indies,” she said. Expressing gratitude for the donation, Dr Sunil Stephenson, consultant cardiothoracic surgeon at UHWI, told the Jamaica Observer that the equipment was a necessity as the hospital continues to observe an increase in cardiac patients yearly. “For a year, we perform about 80 to 90 heart surgeries. As a matter of fact, most deaths… in Jamaica are caused by cardiovascular diseases. So we do see quite a bit of patients who require our services and it’s mainly related to lifestyle illnesses. Some are genetic but most of what we do see is related to chronic non-communicable diseases. So there’s definitely an increase,” said Dr Stephenson. He added that the equipment gave patients greater access to minimally invasive surgery which, he noted, offered significant advantages. “The benefit in the sense that there’s less pain, they recover much faster. There’s still a shorter time in the ICU, and they need less time on the ventilator. So they recover much quicker and they’re more comfortable. And for females, they prefer the fact that they don’t have an incision in the middle of the chest because they’re very concerned about how the scar would look. So these instruments will actually help us to be able to do these procedures, and extend these procedures to the entire Jamaica, because that’s the population that we serve,” said the doctor. For his part, Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton thanked Smythe and her team for the donation, and expressed confidence in the quality of staff at UHWI, adding that he had no doubt that the equipment would be put to good use. “I just want to embrace the concept of ongoing effort to improve, and to make the services more efficient, embrace the concept of volunteerism and charity and gifting, and just say that for health, we have to see ourselves as a community and work together as a community. So thank you again, we appreciate it, and we certainly wish you the very best in terms of your own struggles and work, both as a foundation but also individually,” Tufton said.