A new chapter has been added to the Queen of Heart campaign, India’s biggest and only awareness campaign around women’s heart health, with the launch of an awareness drive that will see a busload of artistes connect with people of 50 Indian cities with the help of local doctors.
Mumbai Oct 12th 2013(Sailesh Gandhi): The Queen of Heart campaign, India’s largest awareness drive on women’s heart health, launched Queen of Heart Express, a unique initiative in India which is connecting the largest network of cities through a bus cruise for the first time for the cause of Heart Diseases in Women. Mayor, Sunil Prabhu and Additional Municipal Commissioner, Manisha Mhaiskar, Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai flagged off the Express from Mayor Bungalow, Shivaji Park, Dadar. 
Queen of Heart Express, in Mumbai conducted theatrical street play performances with themes focusing on heart diseases in Indian women, its atypical manifestations, and prevalence. Free counseling was provided to Mumbaikars. Post the flag off from Mayor’s Bungalow, the express moved towards Holy Family Hospital And Heart Institute in Bandra and was attended by Dr. Brain Pinto. The express then moved towards Criticare Multispeciality Hospital and Research Center wherein the Medical Director and cardiologist, Dr. G.P. Ratnaparkhi attended. Among the cardiologists attending the express, Dr. Mahesh Shah attended at Arogya Nidhi Nursing Home in Juhu. The express will also move around the city on 13th October and will be attended by Dr. Jagdish Parikh at S. R. Mehta & Sir K. P. Cardiac Institute in King Circle and Dr. Nandkumar Chonkar at Aditi Hospital in Mulund.
Supporting the initiative, Dr. Brain Pinto, Interventional Cardiologist said, “It’s not just that heart diseases are on an alarming rise amongst women, the fact that it is considered more of a men’s disease is making large section of our society to fall prey to this silent killer. This calls for steps to address the urgent need for such large-scale initiatives, which could not only connect with people from all walks of life but also engage them through a unique awareness drive.”
Adding further, Dr. G. P. Ratnaparkhi, Cardiologist said, “Swiftly changing lifestyles of women in last decade and negligence towards preventive measures are important reasons behind the rise of CVD. Hence, there is a need to spread awareness amongst the masses and make them aware that heart disease is not just a man’s disease.”
With a recent WHO factsheet revealing that every four seconds a woman dies of causes attributable to heart disease, and American Heart Association suggesting that almost two-thirds (64%) of women who die suddenly of coronary heart disease have no previous symptoms, the Queen of Heart campaign has spun the wheel of awareness around women heart health in the country at a decisive moment in time.
The Queen of Heart Express was flagged off by Ms. Sheila Dikshit, Honorable Chief Minister, Delhi, on the eve of World Heart Day. The Express intends to cover a distance of 20,000 km through India, thereby reaching out to more people in far flung areas across country and touching more than 2 lac people. The bus has already visited Jaipur, Jodhpur, Udaipur, Kota, Ajmer, Rajkot, Ahmedabad, Baroda, Surat and intends to cover Pune, Panjim, Mangalore, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Ranchi, Indore, Kanpur and Kolkata.
The entire campaign is designed to amend the conventional mindset of common people and sometimes even that of healthcare professionals, that ‘heart disease is a men’s disease’. According to experts this is one of the major reasons to overlook its symptoms, which are often atypical, and a key contributory factor in making heart disease one of the most misdiagnosed and undertreated disease among women.
According to recently conducted survey “Visualizing the Extent of heart Disease in INDIAN women”, VEDNA intending to map the trends of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) in Indian women, in last five years 54% of cardiologists observed a 16-20% of overall growth rate in cardiovascular diseases among women, which quite high as compared of men. More surprisingly, a whopping 41%of the doctors, who participated in survey, claimed an alarming 10-15% growth rate in cardiovascular diseases among the age group of 20-40 years, the category of women which was earlier considered ‘protected’ from heart ailments.
According to experts swiftly changing lifestyles of women in last decade and negligence towards preventive measures are important reasons behind this rise. According to American Heart Association, Statistical Fact Sheet 2013 Update, each year new and recurrent MI and fatal CHD will impact an estimated 380,000 women.
The Queen of Heart campaign, an initiative of Biocon, supported by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Indian Public Health Association, Help Age India, FICCI Ladies Organization, and Heal Foundation, is focused on spreading awareness, busting myths, and on making a case for sustained interventions to deal with the burgeoning incidence of heart disease in Indian women. The Queen of Heart Express is yet another effort in this front.
Conducted street shows in Mumbai with an enthusiastic audience
0 comments:
Post a Comment