Heart failure poses a huge disease burden specifically in an ageing society. It is a leading cause of death world over. Lack of awareness on heart failure, its symptoms, treatment options and management amongst the general population significantly increases risk of morbidity and mortality. There is an overt noise and overdose on chest pain and angioplasty in the city but there is hardly any awareness on the ever increasing burden of heart failure caused by coronary artery disease thereby underdiagnosing this critical, manageable condition in our city.
Keeping that in mind and feeling the need of the hour, Fortis Hospital, Anandapur along with Fortis Malar Hospital, Chennai has come forward to launch the “Heart Failure Clinic & Advanced Therapy Program” for the people of Eastern India.
“Heart Failure Clinic is popular and well accepted concept in the Western world, does provide a comprehensive consultation for managing the condition and thus to improve the quality of life. We want to give better healthcare to every individual who comes to Fortis and as part of this ongoing effort we have launched the Heart Failure Clinic today. The next step will be cadaveric heart transplant. We are very keen to make it possible. It is just a matter of time now,” said Mr Samir Singh, Zonal Director, Fortis Healthcare Ltd, (East).
“Fortis Malar Hospital, Chennai is the pioneer of heart failure and heart transplant program in India and SE Asia. It has done over 90 heart transplants so far which is the highest number of heart transplants in India and would provide Fortis Hospital, Anandapur the bandwidth to successfully launch the one stop solution for Heart Failure Patients of Eastern India, which includes medical management, heart assist devices are finally leading to heart transplant,” said Dr, K M Mandana, Senior Consultant Cardiothoracic & Vascular Surgery, Fortis Hospital, Anandapur.
Dr, Tapas Ray Chaudhuri, Senior Consultant Cardiothoracic & Vascular Surgery, Fortis Hospital, Anandapur added, “If blockages in coronary arteries which supply oxygenated blood to heart muscles are neglected over a long time it can lead to Ischemic heart failure. So presence of any significant blockages in coronary arteries has to be treated by balloon angioplasty or bypass surgery at the earliest.”
“Most people think Heart Failure means Heart Attack. Heart failure is a condition in which the heart can’t pump enough blood to meet the body’s needs. In some cases, the heart can’t fill with enough blood. In other cases, the heart can’t pump blood to the rest of the body with enough force. Some people have both problems. The term “heart failure” doesn’t mean that your heart has stopped or is about to stop working. However, heart failure is a serious condition that requires medical care,” said Dr. Soumitra Kumar, Consultant Cardiology, Fortis Hospital, Anandapur.
Dr. Shuvanan Ray, Director Cardiology, Fortis Hospital, Anandapur, added, “Heart Failure is certainly not the end of the road and not always heaft failure is due to reduced pumping of the blood. Heart Failure may be a sequelae to rigidity of the heart muscle (e.g. in aged people) where heart cannot receive blood properly from peripheral circulation and that causes stagnation of the blood in the system causing breathlessness and swelling of the body. Heart failure certainly has a significant mortality which is even 50% in 5 years if untreated, so detection and proper treatment of heart failure is important for survival.”
Dr.R. Ravikumar, Senior Consultant Cardiology and Heart Failure, Fortis Malar Hospital, Chennai says, “Current estimates indicate that there might be more than 2 million patients suffering from Heart Failure in India at any given time. Fortis Chennai has taken major, new initiatives to bring qualitative change in ways to treat heart failuie in the country. These involve establishing an Out Patient Heart (OPD ) based Failure Program and introducing end to end solutions for this fatal condition with the likes of Heart Transplants and LV assist devices.”
“Fortis Malar Hospital, Chennai has been successful in establishing the Largest Heart Transplant program in India as well as introducing new technologies like mechanical circulatory support including Left Ventricular Assist Devices and ECMO pumps for immediate resuscitation of sick cardiac patients, including ECPR for resuscitating patients from cardiac arrest. With a volume of about 8 transplants a month, we are one of the busy heart transplant programmes in the world,” said Dr. K R Balakrishnan, Director Cardiac Scrences and Chief Heart Transplant Surgeton, Fortis Malar Hospital, Chennai.
