The Aga Khan Health Services in Dar es Salaam plan to start performing heart surgery, a step forward that will provide relief to patients, who are currently forced to seek such treatment abroad, at high cost.
This AKHS initiative will complement efforts by the Muhimbili National Hospital, which is also in the final stages of preparations for operating on heart patients.
AKHS medical director Dr Jaffer Dharsee said at the weekend that the AKHS would provide a full range of cardiac imaging.
He said such a procedure involved what in medical terms are called angiography, angioplasty and ballooning, stenting and (eventually) open heart surgery.
Although he could not expand on the potential cost of heart surgery, reports indicate that the price for heart bypass surgery in India varies between $5,500 (Sh8.8million) and $ 7,800 (Sh12.4million).
In Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and other East-African countries, where the condition of medical facilities is quite grim, medical tourism to India is a boon for these countries, reports say.
Dr Dharsee explained further that they hoped that for each operation on the heart which was conducted locally, Tanzanian patients would reduce their medical costs by half.
He explained that the AKHS and the MNH saw the necessity of providing home services to fight cardiovascular diseases, hence doing away with dependence on outside countries.
He was speaking at a symposium about 2013 cardiology updates, and the status of cardiac services in East Africa and in Dar es Salaam.
He said they planned to start providing the service by June next year, while the MNH would begin in the next two months.
“With this move, there are signs that over the next three years we will achieve a big step in treating cardiovascular diseases in this country,” he said.
It was noted that the provision of such services here would cut costs for patients who had been seeking the services abroad.
He also said their decision was a response to President Jakaya Kikwete’s appeal to local experts to bring heart-surgery to this country.
While rates of cardiovascular disease, including coronary heart disease and stroke have been declining in most industrialised countries, including the United States and the UK, they are rising in most developing countries.
Stroke mortality rates in Tanzania are three times higher than in the UK. There were nearly 46,000 deaths due to cardiovascular disease in 2002, this number was expected to rise to 63,000 in 2015 and 85,400 in 2031.
Chronic diseases create large adverse, quite underrated, economic effects on families, communities and countries.
In 2005 alone, it was estimated that Tanzania lost $100 million in national income from premature deaths due to heart disease, stroke and diabetes.
These losses are projected to continue to increase, cumulatively. Tanzania stands to lose about $3 billion over the next 10 years from premature deaths due to heart disease, stroke and diabetes.
Dr Dharsee further said that the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension and obesity was much higher in urban areas than in rural areas, with the highest rate in Dar es Salaam region.
It was projected that cardiovascular diseases would become the single most common cause of death in the developing and developed world, with Africa experiencing an overall steady rise in non-communicable diseases.
Risk factors include hypertension, smoking, diabetes, obesity, unhealthy life-style habits and the ageing of the population.
These factors combined with rapidly increasing urbanization have contributed to the overwhelming rates of cardiac-related diseases in this country.
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