Management of coronary heart disease in Bangladesh- Part 1

Management of coronary heart disease in Bangladesh

 When the president prof. Yajuddin Ahmed was flown to Singapore in a ‘stable’ haemodynamic condition for treatment at the advice of a seven-member board comprised of the leading cardiologist of the country including National Professor Brigadier (retd) Dr. M A Malik known as the pioneer of heart treatment in Bangladesh, Prof Dr. Sufia Rahman, known as the cardiologist introducing interventional cardiology in the country, and Prof KMHS Sirajul Haque, and others-surely the board cold not depend on the quality of the cardiac treatment of the country. Or just they could not take risk, as far as the life of such a dignitary as our president was concerned. The president has been then undergoing treatment at the Combined Military Hospital (CMH), which is one of our few hospital richly equipped with the diagnostic technologies of the disease. In the mount Elizabeth Hospital of Singapore where the president was taken to, what did the doctors do? They followed the usual procedure, as is done in all such cases: they got an angiography of this heart, found one completely and two partially blocked arteries, and quickly overcome those blockages through an open-heart bypass surgery, the most invasive of cardiac interventions. The president come back after a few day, took test and after a prescribed period of time-about three weeks perhaps-joined his office. Now he is living a life with normal work output. The two ex-ministers BNP Secretary General Abdul Mannan and AL General Secretary Abdul Jalil are also heart patients: the farmer had an angioplasty, and the latter had a by-pass and an angioplasty. Abdul Jalil also has a pacemaker in his heart. Both of them went outside the country for their treatment because they could not depend on the standard of our cardiac treatment and also because they could afford to bear the expenditure, like all the rich people who are going to other countries for treatment, mostly to Singapore or Thailand.

What was the case, say, with an average businessman or a government official of a district town who developed heart blockages? The picture  one can imagine: For him reaching Dhaka was all, and for his relative who brought him to the capital, the matter was something to be talked about: we did not wait, we took him to Dhaka somehow we managed to collect the money, at the national Heart Foundation the ‘biggest surgeon’ of the country did the operation, the operation was successful, now he is OK, sitting in his shop, or going to his office. But there are many, unlucky the businessman or ................
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