Govt needs to set up heart cath labs beyond the capital
IT is a very sad fact that the treatment for cardiovascular diseases in Bangladesh is Dhaka centric.
Even in most divisional cities, there is no cath lab to perform emergency angioplasty to open a blocked artery of heart, not to mention the open heart surgery for which an especially equipped operation theatre is needed.
For a critical heart patient undergoing a heart attack, time is a great factor.
If a blocked artery could not be opened by stenting within time, the patient may die or his heart can get seriously damaged.
For such a patient in remote divisional and district towns, these cath lab facilities are not present.
He has to run against time to reach the capital for a non-invasive angioplasty procedure.
If fate helps him, he gets time to have this treatment; otherwise he has to face what is inevitable.
To cater treatment services to the port city of Chattogram, a branch of Dhaka’s Heart Foundation was established last year.
But what is there for the heart patients of the rest of the country?
The Heart Foundation is not a government health facility, despite that, considering the cost of heart treatment in private hospitals, the Foundation gives fairly good treatment to health patients at an affordable cost for the middle class people.
If the Foundation could overcome negligence of some of its crucial staff and service which visitors to the hospital often complain about, the hospital would have earned more patients satisfaction.
Nowadays, heart disease has become so prevalent in the country that rich and poor alike all are falling victims to this lethal disease.
For the poor people, the hope is government’s medical college hospitals across the country, but there is hardly any cath lab in these hospitals.
To have an angioplasty or bypass surgery, their only hope is National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases located in the capital.
To make heart treatment available for poor people, the government must positively think of taking steps to open NICVD branches, at least at the divisional level to make angioplasty available.
At the important hospitals affiliated with government medical colleges, such medical facilities are also necessary.
This would not only be of great help for the poor patients around the country but medical graduates of these colleges would also be benefitted by taking learning lessons from these hospitals.
Instead of squandering money in the so-called development projects through misuse and corruption, the policy makers should spend more money in treating heart patients.
Very grim are the heart disease facts. According to the latest WHO data published in 2020 deaths from coronary heart disease in Bangladesh reached 108,528 or 15.16 per cent of total deaths.
