Treatment for cardiovascular diseases in Bangladesh is capital city 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 a certain period of time, the patient may die or his heart can get seriously damaged which is beyond recovery.
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 such a non-invasive angioplasty procedure. If fate helps him, he gets time to have such treatment, or he has to face what is inevitable. Against this backdrop of poor treatment facilities across the country, that a branch of Dhaka’s Heart Foundation is going to open in Chattogram by September this year must be a welcome piece of news for the residents of the division.
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.
Having said that, we state the Heart Foundation is still not for the poor heart patients. 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 divisional to make available angioplasty and bypass surgery.
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 but medical graduates of these colleges would also be benefitted by learning lessons from these hospitals.
Instead of squandering money in the so-called development projects through misuse and corruption, the government 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% of total deaths. It is more severe than Covid-19 pandemic.
