Swiss Heart Foundation – Switzerland 2017
Switzerland issued a 85 cent stamp on 06 mar 2017 to mark the 50th anniversary of Swiss Heart Foundation.
Short history of the Swiss Heart Foundation: The Swiss Cardiology Foundation, as the heart foundation called itself at the time, was founded on 26 January 1967 in Berne on the initiative of two professors from Western Switzerland, Professor Pierre W. Duchosal (Geneva) and Professor Jean-Louis Rivier (Lausanne). The reason and trigger were a rapid increase in the diagnosis of cardiovascular disease in Switzerland as well as abroad, that was over and above the rate due to increasing age. Since the beginning, the main purpose of the foundation has been to fund cardiovascular research. As the result of a review of the statutes in 1978, this purpose was then extended: patient information, raising public awareness, prevention, and health promotion have become important additional tasks of the foundation. In 1999, the previous cardiological focus of the foundation was extended to include the circulatory (cardiovascular) system as a whole, thereby also including stroke.
Since November 2016, the head office of the Swiss Heart Foundation has been based at the ‘Herzhaus’ (Heart House) in the centre of the federal capital of Berne. It shares these premises with the secretariat of the Swiss Society of Cardiology, the Swiss Society of Hypertension, the Swiss Association of Physicians with surgical and invasive activity and the Swiss Society for Public Health Specialists. Expertise at both therapy and prevention level are hence pooled at the ‘Herzhaus’. The activity of the Swiss Heart Foundation is based on three pillars:
- Research Funding
- Prevention – assuming Individual responsibility
- Patient Information and Promoting self Management.
Courtesy Oxford Academic and European Heart Journal.
Stamp Digest 