Dr Camellus Ezeugwu, an Interventional Cardiologist and the founder of Heart Diseases Prevention and Training Centre, Nsukka, says detecting heart-related diseases early will help prevent sudden death.
Ezeugwu said this in Nsukka on Monday during a workshop organised for staff of the centre.
Heart-related diseases are a collection of diseases and conditions that caused cardiovascular problems to human body.
According to Ezeugwu, prevention is the most cost effective and most life saving approach to healthcare, especially in heart related diseases.
Ezeugwu is also an assistant Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine, Maryland, United States of America.
He said he established the centre to help detect and manage heart-related diseases.
“I have the inspiration to establish this centre as far back as 1972 as a young man when I made the decision that I will be a medical doctor in future.
“One of greatest benefits of this centre, which is also a hospital, is to make people understand the concept of early prevention in health issues,”he said.
He expressed concern that some health conditions, like high blood pressure and diabetes, which kill a lot of people were preventable if detected early.
“What many do not know is that these diseases carry with them complications that affect many parts of the body, people should form the habit of going to hospitals for check up.
“Without early detection, these heart diseases result in stroke, blindness, kidney, heart failures and other complications leading to sudden death”, he said.
He said the notion by some people that they had been cured when they had high blood pressure, within some time and the pressure reduced, was wrong.
“Our target is to make people to understand that they need to see a specialist who will manage their condition on a routine basic.
“This will help reduce the chances of having stroke, kidney, heart failures, complications or dying suddenly.
“Our hospital is equipped with modern high-tech medical equipment with qualified personnel, consultation charge and other services affordable,” he said.
He noted that the retraining workshop was a routine practice in the organisation to ensure that management and staff were updated to the best health practice globally for effective and efficient service delivery.
In a remark, Dr Francis Asogwa, also a cardiologist, said that the hospital which was established last year to help people prevent heart-related diseases that might result to sudden death.
Asogwa, the Medical Director of the hospital, said that the hospital would sustain its policy of going to villages, churches and markets to sensitise residents on how to prevent and manage heart-related diseases.
