KATH to set up cardiovascular risk research centre

A cardiovascular risk research centre is to be set up at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH), the nation’s second referral facility, to support the treatment of heart diseases.

The project is a collaboration between the hospital and the Guangdong Cardiovascular Institute in China.

Dr. Isaac Owusu, a Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon at KATH, who broke the news said it would help to identify risk factors of heart or blood vessel diseases in communities and provide timely support and treatment systems.

For a start, the Institute, together with the hospital’s Cardiothoracic Centre would from September, embark on a project dubbed “prevalence of cardiovascular disease risk factors in the Ghanaian communities” in four regions – Ashanti, Northern, Central and Greater Accra.

He was speaking during a media interaction with a team of cardiothoracic surgeons and nurses from the Institute on a medical mission to offer treatment to patients with severe cardiac conditions.

The team, together with their local counterparts in KATH, had performed open heart surgeries on four patients and implanted pacemakers on five others.

Dr. Owusu confirmed that severe heart conditions were increasing in Ghana.

He said research had shown that over 50 per cent of adults, who reported at the facility with cardio conditions had hypertension. A third of those patients also suffered from rheumatic heart diseases.

He said the centre would help to identify the actual causes, risk factors and come out with appropriate strategies to address some of the causes.

Professor Lin Chunying, Mission Team Leader, said apart from the treatment and surgeries, the team had since last year, provided drugs, medical consumables and supplies, costing about US$300,000 to the hospital.

She hailed the strong collaboration between the Institute and KATH in the treatment and management of cardiac conditions, noting that, it had brought comfort to patients some of them would have found it difficult to access health care because of the expensive nature of treatment.

Dr. Joseph Akpaloo, Chief Executive of KATH, thanked the Chinese team for its continued assistance to the hospital.

It showed a stronger relationship between China and Ghana in the pursuit of common goals to improve the health of their peoples.