Resumption of physical activity after heart surgery is essential. To encourage this, a team of ten caregivers from the Geneva University Hospitals (HUG) takes several of their patients on a tour of Mont Blanc on foot, an extraordinary experience to help them regain their confidence.
Taking 30 people who have undergone heart surgery to tour Mont Blanc: this initially surprising project was set up ten years ago at HUG thanks to the support of its private foundation. The objective is to “create emblematic events to transmit a message of hope”, explained cardiologist Philippe Meyer on Sunday in the 7:30 p.m. of RTS.
Meeting such a challenge after a cardiac event involves a profound upheaval in your lifestyle. This change in lifestyle must be put into practice in the long term, as physiotherapist Line Rodriguez explains.
Getting back into shape begins first with leaving the hospital environment, then with the search for confidence in your heart, explains Edouard Laré, also a physiotherapist at HUG. Such an expedition represents a “consecration” for people who have recovered well physically, he adds.
170 kilometer route
The tour of Mont Blanc represents a route of 170 kilometers, including 9,000 meters of elevation gain, carried out over 9 days by the thirty patients and the 10 members of the medical staff who accompany them.
“It’s something I hadn’t experienced for a long time, the fact of being able to walk like that, to endure, to breathe without blowing,” explains Christophe Chemtob. “It’s freedom,” considers the patient.
This project “is a magnificent experience, even unforgettable,” says Périclès Magalhaes de Oliveira, sports instructor at the cardiac rehabilitation department. The feeling is shared by the team’s mountain guide, who says he is amazed: “Among these people, the weakest is with the strongest and we are all together.”
TV report: Chloé Steulet
Adaptation web: mera
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