Of the 5,210 deaths in Cork and Kerry in 1997, 46 per cent were due to circulatory diseases, a figure which mirrors exactly the proportion of people nationally who died from the same cause.
The Southern Health Board has begun a pilot scheme in the west Kerry area aimed at improving the community's ability to help heart-attack patients.
The scheme is based on Donegal's successful pre-hospital emergency care project, initiated in 1992, and involves GPs and the wider community in direct intervention when a rapid response is required for a heart-attack patient.
Dr Micheβl Fanning is co-ordinating the cardio pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) community programme, and is convinced it will save lives.
The six GPs in west Kerry, serving an area from Camp to D·n Chaoin, deal with a population of about 6,000 people in winter and an estimated 20,000 in summer.
Under the scheme, the community at large is to be trained in basic life-support skills and cardiac disease recognition. Doctors and the ambulance service will be equipped with defibrillator and ECG machines, as well as support kits and appropriate cardiac drugs for the treatment of clotting and irregular heart-beats. Ongoing training will be provided.
On December 1st and 2nd, 15 trainers from the health board, under the direction of ambulance training officer Mr Brian Abbot, will instruct some 200 people from a cross-section of the west Kerry community. The sessions will take place at Meβnscoil na Toirbhirthe in Dingle.
Dr Fanning says that in Ireland, the response to initial cardiac care and treatment has been lacking. For a person who suffers a heart-attack in Heathrow Airport, for example, there are 140 defibrillators available.
If the attack happened during a match at Lansdowne Road, only four of the life-saving devices would be on hand, he says.
"In the event of a heart-attack with complications it is hoped that there will be a 'call fast', rapid, skilled and co-ordinated response and that a stronger chain of survival will be put in place in west Kerry."