Doctors ask FG to tackle rising heart diseases

The Nigerian Cardiac Society has called on the Federal Government to provide adequate facilities to enable medical personnel to cope with treating heart diseases, which has been on the increase in the country.

The President of the NCS, Dr. Amam Mbakwem, said this in an interview with our correspondent at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Osun State, on the sideline of the annual general and scientific conference of the society.

Mbakwem said, “Heart failure is increasing all around us. We have observed that there is an increase in the number of people with heart problems in the country. Hypertension is becoming rampant.

“In developed countries, heart failure is common among those who are 65 years old, but in Nigeria, people are developing heart failure at 50, even as there is no health insurance coverage for them.

“Nigeria has lost many young people to this disease and that is why we are calling on the government to provide facilities to enable us to effectively treat these people.

“Also, the cost of treatment must be subsidised by government.”

The medical expert advised Nigerians to cultivate the habit of eating healthy diet for a heart heart, while stressing that exercise is an important factor to keep the heart in good condition.

She urged Nigerians to stop feeding children with junks but good food with fruit and plenty of vegetables, saying healthy diet would reduce incidents of heart-related problems.

She said, “We must do something urgently about obesity in children. It is common nowadays to see obese children even when the parents are slim.

“This is because parents no longer allow their children to eat fruit, resulting in childhood obesity, with the attendant incident of hypertension, even among the underaged.”

In his speech, the Chairman, Local Organising Committee, Prof. Bode Balogun, urged parents to allow their children to engage in physical exercise, which includes trekking to school as much as possible, rather than living sedentary life and playing computer games.

He warned that children who do not engage in physical exercise during their growing up years would not take to exercise when they grow up.