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Prevalence of heart disease at almost epidemic levels – Cardiac Expert
– CHI helping to counter challenge by providing cheapest cardiac services in Caribbean
Interventional Cardiologist,
Dr. Mahendra Carpen
The prevalence of heart disease in Guyana is almost at epidemic levels. This is according to one of the most popular cardiac experts in Guyana, Dr. Mahendra Carpen. He has been offering his services in both the public and private health sectors.
In a lengthy but very informative missive published in the letters’ section of the Sunday September 16, 2018 Edition of this newspaper, Dr. Carpen revealed that while heart disease was back in the day synonymous with the elderly, it is no longer an age specific disease.
“I have had patients with heart attacks and as of recent there has been a surge in males in their mid 30s coming in with massive heart attacks…” said Dr. Carpen. “We are now experiencing more severe heart disease in the under-50 age group too frequently.”
Many of these patients, he disclosed, are not even aware of the presenting symptoms of heart disease and often associate these to “gas” or something “non-cardiac”.
“By the time they reach hospital, they would have been three to four days without appropriate treatment,” said Dr. Carpen who also shared that “misinformation can scare patients, undermine trust and cause more delays which results in dire consequences, including death.”
What has long been known, too, is that cardiac care does not come cheap. But according to Dr Carpen, Guyana is currently home to a number of cardiac treatments which are easily the cheapest within the Caribbean.
The Interventional Cardiologist, who has been offering his expertise here in Guyana for a number of years, said that the Caribbean Heart Institute, an institution from which he operates, provides the cheapest bypass surgery in the Caribbean.
This, Dr. Carpen said, is owing to the fact that there are no fees charged by the cardiac surgeon or the perfusionists. And Dr. Carpen would know as he has been offering his cardiac expertise at the public/private institution situated at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation for a number of years.
“We [CHI] are also the cheapest for coronary angiograms, angioplasty and coronary stent implantation,” Dr. Carpen disclosed.
Coronary angiogram, he explained, is the procedure to take pictures of the arteries of the heart to find blockages while angioplasty is when the blockage is stretched with a balloon to open it. The coronary stent implantation on the other hand involves putting in a mesh-like tube to keep the artery open,” Dr. Carpen shared.
Gone are the days when the government of Guyana spent an average of US$50,000 to afford care to a single patient in need of cardiac treatment overseas. During the 2004/2005, Dr. Carpen disclosed that government spent US$500,000 to send 10 Guyanese patients overseas for cardiac treatment.
“For a country like ours, this was an unsustainable situation,” said Dr. Carpen who revealed that it was just this dilemma that resulted in the birth of CHI in 2006 which is a public/private partnership between government and the Board of Directors of CHI.
This development has moreover allowed for the cost of treatment to be continually revised to its current position where, Dr. Carpen said, “we can now provide care for 100 patients instead of 10 patients [2004/2005] for the same cost.”
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