NCD corners create hopes for thousands of HTN patients

Reza Mahmud :
Thousands of hypertension (HTN) patients in rural areas get lights of hope for appearance of non-communicable disease (NCD) corners in different government hospitals and community clinics.
Thousands of patients of the lethal disease get different medical services including blood pressure checkup and medicines free of cost regularly.
Besides, physicians and officials of those NCD corners are keeping health conditions of those patients in their regular monitoring.
Sources said, one in every five people which is about 21 percent of the total population are suffering from HTN across the country. About half of them are women.
Besides, about 13.6 percent of the rural people are suffering from HTN.
Most of the HTN patients in the rural areas
 are careless about their health condition while 67 percent of them unaware about having the disease.
Many of those even don’t know that they are suffering from the disease.
In these circumstances, the government’s Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) and National Heart Foundation have taken initiatives to provide HTN medical services among the rural people.
Under these initiatives, the non-communicable disease (NCD) of the DGHS of the health ministry and National Heart Foundation of Bangladesh started combined HTN medical services in 54 upazilas in 2018.
Research and Advocacy Organization PROGGA (Knowledge for Progress) with the support of the international organization Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI) is carrying out media advocacy to strengthening implementation of the programme.
Officials of the health care centers said that the initiatives are working to identify the disease, provide necessary medicines and bring the patients under regular follow-up to control the serious disease. Officials said that more than one lakh HTN patients who were registered in the last two years in those hospitals and clinics.
About on average four thousands of patients are taking registrations every month in those centers.
Around 58 percent of those patients become successful of controlling the high blood pressure.
On visiting the pilot projects in different upazila health complexes and community clinics in Sylhet district in recent two days, it has been found that thousands of HTN patients got sufficient medical services including medicines free of costs.
The health officials and patients said that if the project expanding across the country, the lethal HTN disease could be brought under control soon. Dr. Kamruzzaman, Health Officer of Fenchugonj Upazila Health Complex, of Sylhet, told The New Nation that about 50 patients used to come in the NCD corner every day.
On average 30 of those patients are suffering from high blood pressure related problems. He said that 6,231 HTN patients had been registered in the corner since April17, 2019. They screened 64,293 people in the last three years.
The official said that they have provided four types of medicines to the HTN patients without cost as per the national guide line. Similarly Ghungadia community clinic of Beanibazar upazila of Sylhet found is achieving notable success in this field.
Md. Saiful Alam, Community Health Care Provider (CHCP) of the clinic, told The New Nation, “We have provided medicines once for one month free of cost to the local patients who usually failed to go upazila health complex. We also have taken those patients under regular follow up. As a result the high blood pressures of those patients can be taken under control.”
Patients from both the medical centers expressed their happiness for getting the live saving services within their door steps. Dr. Sohel Reza Chowdhury, Head of Epidemiology and Research Department of the Heart Foundation said that they are working in collaboration with ‘Resolve to Save Lives’, a global public health non-profit organization.
When contacted, Professor Dr. Robed Amin, Line Director of NCD programme of the DGHS told The New Nation, “The government is trying to curb the fatalities from the HTN related problems by 2025.”