Imagine living in The Gambia, where just one cardiologist serves the entire public health system for 2.8 million people.

That is not a typo, or a mistake. Unfortunately, it's true.

Hello, I'm Karen Kelly, a nurse, a mum, and the founder of HeartPath. I have spent my career in heart failure care in Ireland. I know what it looks like when someone gets help in time. And I know what it looks like when they don't.

Two of my children were born with heart conditions. For the first years of their lives, we were in and out of hospital. Surgeries. Appointments. Lying awake at night checking their breathing. Wondering if I was missing something.

And that was in Ireland, with world-class cardiologists, a hospital within reach, and a specialist nurse at the end of the phone.

I think about that a lot when I think about the Gambia.

What is happening there right now:

People in their 30s and 40s are dying from strokes and heart failure caused by untreated high blood pressure. Conditions that are detectable. Manageable. Often completely preventable.

In the Basse region (377km from the country's only cardiologist) families travel for days just to have their blood pressure checked. Many never make the journey at all.

I have been on cardiac missions with Global Cardiac Alliance. I have met those families. I met Mohammed, who's mother travelled for days to reach a cardiac team because she knew something was wrong with her son. She was heavily pregnant. She sat quietly in the waiting room for hours. She was right, Mohammed needed urgent surgery, which he had the next day, the same day his baby sister was born.

He is home now. Thriving. Thanks to her mom walking for DAYS while PREGNANT. Not everyone can make that journey. That is what this is about. Building sustainable systems and preventing possible deaths.

What your donation funds:

HeartPath is building the first nurse-led cardiovascular prevention programme in rural Gambia, working directly with local nurses, outreach teams, the School of Nursing and Midwifery, and Dr Lamin, the national cardiologist.

This is not a one-off visit. It is a prevention model built to last, designed and run with the people who live there.

If you can donate, thank you.

If you can't, sharing this to your friends and family would cost nothing and means just as much.

Karen Kelly

Founder, HeartPath

#HeartPathGambia