Cardiologist Blames Patients for Increase in Heart Diseases

 

She told newsmen in Lagos that most patients visited the hospitals late when not much doctors could do to remedy their situations.

Daniels said that ignorance and dearth of specialists was, however, responsible for the late presentation of the disease by most patients.

``This may be due to ignorance; maybe the cardiologist is not within reach. For some of them, they may be old in the village and must contact their children in far distance places before they could get medical attention.

``Getting facilities or things to use for patients who have a heart attack, for example, could be a problem in some communities; people do not even prevent it.

``Even, when it happens suddenly, either they will pray first, or go to the church before visiting the hospitals.

`` By the time they visit the hospital, a lot of damage has been done.’’

She decried the uneven spread of cardiologists and surgeons to treat serious conditions like holes in the heart across the country and called for the training of more of such professionals to meet the needs of patients.

The cardiologist said that even where there were enough professional, there were still inadequate facilities to attend to such patients.

``We do have the experts; we do have the equipment; but they are not enough to meet the needs.

“Some people do not have confidence in the experts we have here and of course occasionally, there could also be the complicated cases.

``Especially children’s cases, when they are still very young, the capacity to take care of children, especially after surgery may not actually be very much available in Nigeria.

``If it is adults, hole in the heart can be taken care of, but for children, we are still a bit far from there.``

Daniels urged people to live healthily, by eating good foods, exercising regularly and doing regular checkups to reduce the possibility of having a heart problem.

She urged the people to always visit the hospitals promptly, especially when there were indications of high blood pressure and high cholesterol to prevent complications.