World Heart Day observed on September 29 is the world’s biggest platform created by the World Heart Federation to raise awareness about cardiovascular disease (CVD). Various organisations are conducting programmes to raise awareness about CVD in the city on Thursday.
The Andhra Pradesh Cardiological Society of India (APSCI) is planning programmes on a large-scale and is also going to launch a movement to reduce deaths by CVD.
APSCI secretary and Managing Director of Ramesh Group of Hospitals P. Ramesh Babu said that the Cardiological Society was going to impart large-scale training in Basic Life Saving (BLS) skills on paramedics and volunteers in mandals and villages.
“Persons having basic life saving skills will send the patient to the hospitals within the golden hour and can reduce mortality by 50 per cent. Training people in BLS would be more cost effective. A lot of time and money would be needed to develop the infrastructure that was required otherwise,” he said.
Patients were arriving five to six hours, which is too late, Dr. Ramesh Babu explained and said that APSCI was going to take BLS training to interior villages.
APSCI treasurer and Purna Heart Institute Managing Director A. Purnanand said that in the past 10 years much younger patients were getting CVD. Because of the early onset of the heart disease, there was a need for these patients to undergo angioplasty to avoid complications later in their lives. To make Vijayawada more heart-friendly, there was a need to improve ambulance services and network the hospitals, he said.
Dr. Purnanand said that the Chennai model of networking could be followed in the city. In the Chennai model, hospitals with men and equipment to conduct angioplasty were networked with other hospitals in two rings — one inner and another outer. If the patients were taken to a hospital that was in the inner ring, that is within 15 km of the angioplasty centre, they were rushed to the interventional cardiology centre after stabilising. But if the patient was rushed to a hospital in the outer ring, which was 40 km away, then the patients were administered medication to reduce the clot and then shifted to the interventional cardiology hospital within 48 hours, Dr Purnanand explained.
