Partners Interventional Centre of Jamaica (PICJ), is a full service cardiovascular centre located on the second floor of the Medical Associates Hospital, in Kingston.

 

The centre offers cardiac and internal medicine consultation services, as well as non-invasive and invasive cardiac investigative procedures including cardiac catheterization.

 

Cardiac catheterization is a highly-specialized medical procedure.

 

This is performed by invasive cardiologists which involves passing tubes within the blood vessels of the body to the heart, to get information about the blood flow within the chambers and the blood vessels of the heart.

 

These procedures are required by patients with: heart attacks, chest pain due to reduced blood flow to the heart, congenital heart disease and diseases of the heart valves.

 

The procedures may be diagnostic as well as therapeutic (interventional).

 

Cardiac catheterization was introduced in Jamaica over 50 years ago at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) with the first cases being performed in 1966 by a visiting team.

 

Between 1966 and 1978, 606 cases were performed on children and adults.

 

With the return in 2006 of Dr Victor Elliott, following the completion of Interventional Cardiology studies in Canada, the number of cases performed in the laboratory rose to 198 with 37 of them being interventional.

 

By 2011, 494 cases were done with a gradual increase in the number of cases done each year.