The Government Kilpauk Medical College Hospital’s Department of Cardiology celebrated World Heart Day recently by creating awareness on healthy eating and exercise to maintain a healthy heart.
Heart attack and other non-communicable diseases have been on the rise due to improper diet, sedentary lifestyle and increasing mental stress. The hospital conducted an awareness programme among its patients and attendants by urging them to take up 30 minutes of brisk walking, jogging or swimming for at least five days a week.
The department, set up in 1989, receives on an average 13,000 new outpatients and 45,000 old outpatients annually. While around 900 patients are admitted, the hospital performs around 12,000 echocardiographies every year.
Within 2.5 years of establishing a catheterisation laboratory in the hospital, over 2,000 procedures had been performed, including angiogram, angioplasty, pacemaker implants and pericardiocentesis. That year, a super speciality course in cardiology was launched with an intake of four seats.
