The leader of one of Britain's biggest trade unions, Mark Serwotka, has spoken publicly for the first time about how he is being kept alive by an electronic device strapped to a belt around his waist.
The head of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS), the biggest civil service union, suffered a mysterious heart failure in 2010 that eventually starved his internal organs of blood. He is hoping to get a heart transplant, but meanwhile has been fitted with an electronic gadget, called a ventricular assist device (Vad), which pumps blood around his body. Between 140 and 150 people in the entire UK have one. Each installation costs in the region of £130,000. Serwotka refers to the Vad as his 'new heart'.
Previously one of the foremost opponents of David Cameron's austerity, Serwotka has been all but invisible in the past few months. The reason why is made public for the first time in an interview with the Guardian: he went to Papworth hospital outside Cambridge last autumn, where surgeons advised him that while he needed a heart transplant, the pressure being exerted by his lungs was so great that any new organ would fail.
Instead, as an interim measure, he was fitted this spring with a Vad. The six-hour operation left him with a pump next to his left heart ventricle, from which a cable runs under his ribs and comes out through his stomach into a controller that sits in a bumbag beside spare batteries on his belt.
Serwotka is believed to have picked up a virus while walking his dog in 2010.
The recovery from the operation has taken months, but he plans to return to work this month. The Vad imposes big restrictions: he cannot bathe or shower, and the weight of the pack and the risk of cables getting snagged means he wants to avoid public transport.
His consultant cardiologist at Papworth, Dr Jayan Parameshwar, said the Vad gives Serwotka 'an OK life, but not a normal life'. But he feels better than he has done for months: able to walk miles and sleep again. At his worst, he reveals, he could barely walk 50 metres and was retching 20 times a day.
The return of Serwotka to the helm of PCS paves the way for trade unions to get far more active this autumn. On the eve of the TUC conference in Liverpool, he lambasts fellow trade union leaders: 'They haven't been up to the task'. He also lays into Ed Miliband: 'He's missing the opportunity of a lifetime. If you haven't got the policies or the ability to take people with you, you're on the floor.'
In the interview, he calls for another mass strike this October, followed by a string of targeted industrial action at key parts of the public sector, such as tax offices, borders agency and meat-hygiene inspectors. 'The unions have got millions and millions in their strike funds: let's use them.'
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