Gary Jefferies, chartered financial planner and managing director at Panoramic Wealth Management, speaks to Health & Protection about having a heart attack with no warning signs, being resuscitated in a restaurant, and how PMI stepped-in to speedily get him fit and back to work.
“I had a heart attack,” Jefferies tells Health & Protection directly. The emergency took place in November 2024 in a restaurant after the 63-year-old financial adviser had just ordered a beer.
“I didn’t know I had a health issue, but the next thing I remember was waking up in an intensive care unit (ICU) having had a cardiac arrest – this was after being resuscitated in the restaurant by a nurse on the adjoining table and subsequently a flying doctor who attended the scene – both of whom I have met up with in better circumstances.”
Jefferies emphasises the NHS was brilliant initially with his care.
“They took me to Tunbridge Wells Hospital at Pembury and from there the process with the NHS got a bit stagnated,” he says.
“They got me to that stage on Saturday 30 November and I was in intensive care until the evening of the second of December.
“I was then transferred to a coronary care unit (CCU) to be diagnosed but not much was happening.”
Road trip to London
After discussions, on 11 December the care team put him on a four-hour ambulance round trip to Kings Hospital, London for an assessment.
“This was to have a meeting with the surgeon but when I got there, they weren’t ready for me,” Jefferies continues.
“The surgeon then wanted a fresher MRI scan before they could decide upon their course of action which was to be reappointed, meaning more delay. So I was taken all the way back to Pembury with nothing having been done.
“I remember feeling very weary from that trip and by then it was 11 days on since the cardiac arrest. ”
Jefferies was told he needed a stent or a bypass with an operation likely to take place in the New Year; ultimately a quadruple bypass was decided upon.
Time saving PMI
But Jefferies had comprehensive private medical insurance (PMI) cover with Axa Health including operations which covered his quadruple bypass by way of a coronary artery bypass graft.
“We contacted Axa Health on Thursday 12 December in the hospital and by the end of the week we’d agreed to go to London to have it done,” Jefferies continues.
“I had the MRI in London a couple of days later and the operation the following Thursday.”
According to Jefferies, his PMI saved possibly about a month in waiting time for the operation.
“What I didn’t know was that the King’s Hospital operating theatre was being redone which could have delayed the process further,” he says.
“But there would have been a month without me being treated, which was the important thing, as I didn’t know if I’d have another attack or issue.
“Due to there having been no obvious symptoms, for future health protection while in hospital I had another operation to fit an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), similar to the one footballer Christian Eriksen had, which was also all covered by the policy.
“But even with this I was back home on New Year’s Eve and returned to the office by the beginning of March.”
Controlling your destiny
As for how he’s doing today, Jefferies reveals he has no desire to retire, has lost four stone in the last year and is exercising more.
“I’m playing a little bit more golf, going to the gym more and I feel healthier because the warning sign was there that I won’t get a second chance. The idea is to maintain where I am,” he says.
However, in terms of the advantages of PMI cover, Jefferies is clear.
“If you want to make your own decisions, if you’re a decision maker and you want to have some control of what you do, you need the private medical cover to give you the correct timings,” he continues.
“Otherwise you’re at the mercy of NHS timings, albeit very good people, but you have no time control.
“The NHS will get you there eventually, but you do feel like you’re in a washing machine going around with what’s going on.
“That’s the major difference with PMI – you feel more in control of your destiny.”
