Media Release
Mangaluru, Sep 27: Manipal Hospitals, a part of Manipal Health Enterprises, one of India’s largest healthcare chains, organized free heart screening for as many as 10,732 people across its units on account of ‘World Heart Day’ on Sunday September 27.
The mega event has entered the prestigious ‘India/ Asia Book of Records’ as the largest heart screening event by a hospital chain on a single day.
The campaign was an attempt to encourage people to follow a healthy lifestyle and adopt preventive measures, to ensure a heart healthy nation.
In Mangaluru, the occasion was graced by Nalin Kumar Kateel, MP, Dakshina Kannada, who was the chief guest.
The screening was conducted across Manipal Hospitals units in Bengaluru, Goa, Jaipur, Salem, Vijayawada, Vishakhapatnam and Mangaluru. KMC Mangalore witnessed 1,812 number of people from across age and gender visiting the camps and taking a pledge to keep their heart healthy. The event also had expert talks by cardiac specialist, interaction with doctors to address general queries, free blood pressure and BMI checkups.
"We want people to mark this day in their calendars for regular heart checkups. The phenomenal turnout across units highlight the fact that people don’t mind treading a few miles extra to save their hearts. Cases of cardiac arrest have become a common occurrence due to sedentary lifestyle, bad eating habits, erratic work schedules and lack of physical activity, thus we are taking positive steps in this direction for people to adopt preventive measures through this campaign," said Dr Sudarshan Ballal, medical director and chairman, medical advisory board, Manipal Health Enterprises.
"Heart ailment related facts are both alarming and disturbing. People between 30 to 50 years die every minute in India due to cardiac arrest. Habits like smoking and drinking must be cut down to lower the risk of stroke as they apart from unhealthy eating are the prime culprits for stroke. Today, we are happy to bring about preventive awareness among people through free screening," said Dr R L Kamath, HoD, cardiology, KMC Hospital, Mangaluru.
Manipal Hospitals has excelled across all the verticals of healthcare and cardiology is no exception. Equipped with a team of expert cardiologists and facility, the hospital is well prepared to perform all kinds of heart related surgeries like open heart surgery, angiographies, angioplasties, pediatric cardiac surgery with ease and finesse.
Awareness and healthy lifestyle is the key to stay away from strokes. Regular heart checkups can curtail the risk substantially. Regulation of cholesterol level is imperative to avoid chances of stroke. If the statistics have to be believed prevalence of heart failure in India due to coronary heart disease, hypertension, obesity, diabetes and rheumatic heart disease ranges from anywhere between 1.3 to 4.6 million, with an annual incidence of 491,600 to 1.8 million.