Death From Heart-Related Diseases Alarming

Dr Alfred Doku, Consultant of the National Cardiothoracic Centre.

Health experts in the country are worried at the alarming rate at which people are dying from heart-related diseases and stroke.

Statistics at the National Cardiothoracic Centre indicate that 60 per cent of deaths among adults in the country result from heart-related diseases and stroke.

Additionally, six to seven per cent of the country’s adult population are diabetic, 13 to 25 per cent hypertensive and six per cent have high cholesterol, a situation which has become a source of worry to the medical fraternity.

To sharpen their skills on how to effectively manage such aliments to reduce the rate of death among especially the adult population, a selected group of medical experts are attending a four-day conference on cardiovascular diseases in Accra.

According to a consultant at the National Cardiothoracic Centre, Dr Alfred Doku, who spoke to the Daily Graphic on the fringes of the conference, the sad aspect was that the risk factors responsible for heart diseases and stroke, such as the eating of fatty and salty foods, as well as the adoption of Western lifestyles, were on the increase among all age groups in the country.

Those Western lifestyles, he said, had put a lot of people at risk of getting heart-related diseases.

The conference is organised by the National Cardiothoracic Centre, in conjunction with the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Ghana Society of Hypertension and Cardiology, on the theme, “Practical approach to heart care diseases”.

The conference, sponsored by GE Healthcare, Medtroni, Akai House and others, has brought together doctors, nurses, healthcare assistants and pharmacists from Ghana, Nigeria and other West African countries.

Dr Doku said the conference had become necessary because more people in the country were at a greater risk of dying from heart diseases and stroke resulting from the unhealthy lifestyles they had adopted over the years.

He said the cardio conference was, therefore, aimed at educating medical practitioners on modern trends to strengthen their capacity to keep their patients healthy.

The conference will take participants through topics such as blood pressure (BP) control and targets in CVD, dyslipidaemia, emerging risk factors, lifestyle modification, sex and the heart, antiplatelet therapy, pericardial disease, among others.