STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: With aim to create more and more awareness regarding the congenital heart diseases and methods for prevention and early diagnosis a health checkup camp was organized by Head Department of Cardiology, Dr Sushil Sharma at Bal Niketan Ved Mandir, Amphalla, here on Sunday wherein caretakers and children were screened for any evidence of congenital heart disease and accordingly advised for further evaluation.
While interacting with the children, Dr Sushil stated that considering a birth prevalence of congenital heart disease as 9/1000, the estimated number of children born with congenital heart disease in India is more than 2,00,000 per year.
Of these, about one-fifth are likely to have serious defect, requiring an intervention in the first year of life. Challenges to pediatric cardiac care include financial constraints, health-seeking behavior of community, and lack of awareness.
He further added that substantial proportion of births in India occur at home, and the infant is likely to die before the critical, ductus-dependent CHD is diagnosed.
Fortunately, the rate of hospital deliveries have significantly increased due to several incentivized schemes by the Government of India. Ductus-dependent CHD may still escape detection as babies are often discharged earlier.
Pre-discharge screening of newborns by pulse oximetry, which may pick up these CHDs, is often not practiced, especially in rural and semi-urban centers.
Frontline health workers and primary caregivers are not sensitized to the problem of CHD and a number of them believe that a child with CHD is doomed and will never be able to lead a fruitful life, even if intervened. Delay in referral results in poor outcomes as complications and co-morbidities (such as under- nutrition) may have already set in.
The resources for treatment of CHD are not only inadequate but also seriously mal-distributed. As mentioned earlier, the geographical distribution of these centers is very uneven. Poverty, which is the greatest barrier to successful treatment of CHD, is more common in states with little or no cardiac care facilities. Transport of newborns and infants with CHD is another neglected issue in India. Which they can barely afford. Though several state government level programs, microfinance schemes, charitable and philanthropic organizations exist for the benefit of economically weaker sections of the society, awareness amongst community about such programs is very low, He said.
In his concluding remarks, Dr Sushil Sharma told that we should try to address modifiable risk factors for CHD whenever possible. Several of these risk factors are routinely addressed by high-quality prenatal care-for example, folate supplementation, education about teratogens, and management of maternal weight and gestational diabetes-and investment in prenatal care can be a first step to addressing CHD in the absence of treatment options. The specific treatment strategy could be individualized, depending on resources, disease characteristics, comorbidities, and local medical expertise.
Management Committee of Bal Niketan Ved Mandir, Suresh Chander Gupta ( President), Anita Sharma ( Vice -President), Nagar Mal, Alok Sharma and K K Mengi appreciated the efforts of Dr Sushil and his team for conducting Cardiac awareness cum health checkup camp.
Others who were part of this Camp include Dr Nasir Ali Choudhary (Cardiologist), Dr Anitipal Singh (Orthopaedics) and Dr Dhaneshwer Kapoor.
Paramedics and volunteers include Kamal Sharma, Raghav Rajput, Sahil Sharma, Rajnish Dogra, Sandeep Pal, Rajkumar, Gourav Sharma, Amandeep Singh and Akshay Kumar.
