Broadening awareness on heart disease is absolutely important

-and creating conditions for greater public awareness of the rising problem of heart disease, especially heart attack. That was the premise for experts from within and outside the country convening in Dar es Salaam for two days to figure out how to improve caring for patients suffering heart attack.

It was noticeably the first heart attack international conference in the city, with local participants seeking to draw essential skills from colleagues hailing from a diversity of countries, namely the United States, Argentina, Egypt and India. Participating countries were few enough and drawn evenly from continents, in which case comparative studies used would reflect the diversity the sufferers are drawn from, and indeed the cultural elements that may explain some of the data. Briefly, even a non-practitioner with an idea of research can see its helpful design.

A key organiser of the conference at the training and research department within the Jakaya Kikwete Cardiac Institute (JKCI) asserted in a briefing that heart problems are on the rise, with global statistics indicating that more than 200m people get heart attacks, The trouble with heart attacks is that they aren’t routine diseases like any non-communicable diseases but is often a terminal stage, when it is no longer possible to manage, fruitfully enough, underlying conditions. The conference theme or thrust of discussion was hence twofold, first exchanging clinical experience on patient care, plus popularising lifestyle shift imperatives.

One aspect that may well eat into some current debates is how local hospitals can ensure that a person who experiences a heart attack is actually put to intense treatment within an hour, as otherwise there is virtual certainty of its leading to a fatality. Sadly, the rise in heart attacks is a fairly reliable barometer not just of urban growth and larger populations but also the prevalence of easier ways of life for a quite significant part of the population. Life is happier but risky as well

An additional sphere of worry is that at the international level and even at the local level, the preconditions of heart disease like high blood pressure, diabetes and lack of exercise are no longer the preserve of the rich. A glance at television or other scenes globally illustrates the situation in that often the well-off are more inclined to weight control due to gym facilities, and often fewer hours of work. It is the middle class who suffer more, accessing fatty foods, beer but few facilities for enjoyable gym rather than street jogging. It hurts the joints, etc.

Specialised institutions at the Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH) hub are putting up initiatives of one kind or another in the pursuit of improved medical care and in wider communication with the society, what is known as community medicine or public approaches to disease prevention, etc. MNH works around the clock not just to enhance its expertise in non-communicable diseases but also in seeking to build a medical tourism hub around JKCI and MNH as a whole. Thus in its approaches to the matter there is a language of medicine like patient care enhancement while the commercial aspect isn’t missing, that of customer care. Administrators there have to make an effort to reconcile the two, as increasingly there are spheres of tension in resource use, referrals etc. - as was being aired in the past two months on optimisation of resources in hospitals.