Cardiologists canvass for heart failure awareness

Cardiologists are canvassing for more heart failure awareness to help stem the rising incidence of heart failure disease in the country.

According to the experts, heart failure impacts more than 60 million people worldwide, 1 in every 5 people over the age of 40 will develop heart failure in their life time and 1 in every 4 people diagnosed of heart failure that are 65 years old or older are re-hospitalized within 30 days of discharge.

The experts from the Heart Failure Technical Board which cut across all geo-graphical regions in the country stated this recently in Lagos at an event supported by Novartis.

“Nigerians need the right information, need to be more aware, the government need to sensitize the people more about dangers in heart failure in respect of their healthy living” Amam Mbakwem Consultant Cardiologist, Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH).

Also speaking to journalists, Michael Balogun, Consultant Cardiologist, Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital, said that the commonest cause of heart failure in Nigeria is complications arising from blood pressure.

“Heart failure being the end result of all heart diseases which is worse than prostrate, breast and coronary cancer requires more attention, so that people at that time of their life, will live better, useful and longer life.

According to him, as people get older, the risk of having heart failure increases, therefore the government needs to put policies in place to check the trend on health, social and economic consequences.

“Government also needs to make the drugs affordable because the cost of medication is very high, in a year alone you spend nothing less than N200,000 on drugs only, then cost of investigations are much higher, that is why government needs to reduce financial burden on the dependent” Balogun said.

However, the experts advised that person with heart failure needs to be close with their cardiologist or a physician that specialises in the disease of the heart at least once in three months.

Ikechukwu Ogah, Consultant Cardiologist University Hospital said “50 per cent of all heart failure patients will die within 5 years of diagnosis.”

Ogah stated that despite the improvements in care of heart failure over the past 20 years, the prognosis of heart failure is still unacceptably high, even for patients with the best available treatment.

“All heart failure patients, regardless of their symptoms are at high risk of dying. 76 per cent of heart failure patients struggle to perform their daily activities and 63 per cent report symptoms that are consistent with depression,” he added.

Ogah further said that heart failure places a huge burden on patients’ life, leaving many unable to do simple task, frequent hospitalisation and higher mortality, which can place a huge burden not only on them, but also on their family and caregivers and the wider society.

They further urged people diagnosed with the disease to keep a healthy lifestyle and visit their general practitioner regularly to check their uric acid, cholesterol level while continuing with their monthly medication.

The stakeholders also tasked religious bodies to incorporate the idea of checking blood pressure for their members while calling on government to regulate smoking and salt intake in the country.

Anthonia Obokoh