"Angliss Hospital Cardiac Rehabilitation Program"

This is a great program that I found to be of great value. I 100% recommend this program to anyone recovering from any sort of cardiac surgical event.

I had quintuple CABG (coronary artery bypass graft) surgery at the Austin Hospital, and was referred on to the Angliss Cardiac Rehab Program. The staff - Georgie, Viv, Michelle and volunteer Brian - are great. It was an inviting program that I enjoyed returning to twice a week for my time there. The program and staff also helped me to gently push myself to the levels of exercise I needed in order to build stamina and strength.

Having cardiac nurses available, as well as a physiotherapist, was a great help as I was navigating the first stages of my recovery. Georgie and Viv are a good balance for each other, and I appreciated both of their perspectives and input. Michelle and Brian were clear and friendly in their direction of how to best carry out the actual exercises, and their encouragement was helpful. Everyone made themselves available to really listen to and talk about questions or concerns I had.

The weekly educational sessions were also very helpful in understanding the scope of things I need to work with in the course of my recovery. I myself would suggest making the psychological and/or mindfulness element a weekly aspect, perhaps extending the total time of exercise and education from 2 hours to 2 1/4 hours, or cutting 15 minutes from the educational presentations. I say this because state of mind is crucial to such a major recovery, and taking in the instructions and making them useful is just not possible in a single session.