The Shisong Cardiac Centre sensitized the population on the number one cause of strokes.
Physicians, medical students and population were on the streets of Bamenda recently with with banners, placards, prayers, songs and messages on how to prevent or handle hypertension; a major killer and cause of strokes and heart failure in developing countries.
Organised by the Shisong Cardiac Centre as an activity within the framework of the 2014 World Hypertension Day, the population was encouraged to know their blood pressure.
It was all about free screening, sensitisation and education on cardio-vascular diseases especially hypertension which has emerged as the number two cause of disease burden after tobacco in developing countries, number two cause of heart attack and the cause of raised blood pressure in four of every 10 adults which often goes undiagnosed.
Prominent with sensitisation activities were North West Governor, Adolphe Lele Lafrique, the Regional Delegate of Public Health, Dr Victor Ndiforchu, the Manager of the St Elizabeth Cardiac Centre, Shisong, Sr. Jethro Nkenglefack and some 20 staff of the Shisong Cardiac Centre who moved to Bamenda to enhance the free exercise. Away from the screening exercise, banners and placards revealed that hypertension, like thieves, do not warn before attacks. In effect, hypertension does not warn and has no symptoms.
Alcohol is a major problem and speaker after speaker at the event advised the population to eat lots of vegetables and fruits, reduce fat and oil, reduce salt intake, decrease weight and carry out running or walking exercises as the gateway to prevent hypertension and diabetes.
It was also a rare moment for Governor Adolphe Lele Lafrique to salute the Shisong Cardiac centre for bringing hope to the fight against cardiac diseases. He had the blessings of the administration for the Centre whose manager, Sr. Jethro Nkenglefack and staff sounded off with successes in giving people a chance to live.
It was against this backdrop that Sr. Jethro revealed that in barely five years since inception in 2009, the Shisong Cardiac Centre has performed 430 open heart surgeries, consulted some 23,875, admitted 4,830, emerged with 71 Pacemaker implantations and many catheterisations for an overall 8 per cent mortality rate.
