Heart Attack: A deadly disease

April 8, Wednesday. About 11.30 AM.
I was on duty in the Cornonay Care Unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital. Then I saw a middle aged man was entering the ward being escorted by a man. He was visibly struggling and fighting for his respiration. Me and my colleagues quickly arranged for a bed with high flow oxygen attached with a nasal canula. The patient was so struggling that he couldn't speak at all. His attendant told us that he found the man lying with crumbling chest pain in the street and brought him to the hospital. He did not know him. An ECG was done and the patient was found to have a major heart attack. He was selected for thrombolysis but that cost about BDT 3000 (US $ 45) which was not found with the patient. We the doctors somehow arranged the money and sent the attendant to bring that medicine. In the meantime the patient had cardiac arrest, he was given CPR with cardiac defibrilation. Fortunate he reverted to normal cardiac activity and eventually duly thrombolysed. His subsequent recovery was uneventful and he was discharged from the hospital after 7 days. Although he survived the worst this time, the days to come is not so peaceful as before. He was prescribed a handful of medicines, most of them to be taken life long along with several advices which may compromise the quality of life.

The patient survived. But others may not be as fortunate as him. Heart diseases are the leading cause of death in the developing countries for quite a few decades and now becoming as monsterous in our country also.

We should be careful about this diseases, try our best to prevent them. At the same time some basic orientation about heart attack and familiarity with some simple measures may substantially reduce the mortality and morbidity of heart attack