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Cardiovascular medicine scholar at the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso, Professor Adeseye Abiodun Akintunde, has charged the Nigerian government to develop and enact legal framework for policies that will enhance cardiovascular care in the country.
Presenting the 64th Inaugural Lecture of the University on the topic “The Heart and Its Venomous Whispers of Disorders: Sieving the Wheat from the Chaff”, he observed that government has to take decisive steps towards integrating regular screening for cardiovascular risk factors and dietary control, strict controls of drugs and substances, banning smoking, regulation of alcohol and energy drinks, control of air pollution and ensuring occupational safety for prevention of CVD in Nigeria to ensure a healthier population, as well as development of strategic partnerships between critical stakeholders in cardiovascular care for general population.
While listing the basic cardiovascular care: management of uncomplicated CV risk factors in the primary health care centres, antenatal care and HIV care, he called on “the Government, NGOs, and other critical stakeholders to encourage participatory education of the population on CVD prevention and protection.”
He solicited institutionalization of periodic, mandatory cardiovascular screening through country and statewide adoption of the Know your Numbers campaign (an avenue for screening for hypertension, dyslipidemia, obesity, and diabetes), which account for 90 percent of total cardiovascular risk in the population.
He called for inclusion of cardiovascular care in the National Health Insurance Scheme and provision of subsidized drugs to ensure continuity of care among sufferers of CVD.
The don also canvassed enhanced financing for CVD care, including increasing access to heart devices and establishment of six regional centres for open and closed heart surgeries in Nigeria with sponsorship to ensure professionalism and increased accessibility.
Akintunde observed that task sharing and task shifting model for cardiovascular care in the population with regular training and monitoring of stakeholders will enlist non physician health workers to care for uncomplicated CVD risk factors.
He, therefore, canvassed increase funding for research in cardiovascular disease, with a view to providing breakthrough therapies for Africans with heart diseases.
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