heart checks following the death of superstar Puneeth Rajkumar. Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research head Dr CN Manjunath explained the ongoing stress on the hospitals. He said, “For the last three days a huge number of patients have been coming to the hospital. We used to treat around 1,000 patients a day. Now roughly around 1,800 patients are coming. It’s a huge stress on doctors, nurses and the system.”
The number of people visiting practically all cardiac diagnosis and treatment hospitals and centers in Karnataka for heart checkup has spiked in the past weeks. Doctors attempted to persuade OPD patients that heart diseases should have a family history or specific symptoms and that it is not endemic. According to Dr Sudarshan Ballal of Manipal Hospitals, “The cardiac OPD is up by 20 to 25 per cent in spite of the festival season. Mostly younger people are asking for cardiac evaluation”.
Dr Manjunath explained the possible causes for heart attack. He said, “Those who have multiple risk factors like family history of heart attacks and those who have hypertension, diabetic, smoking and high stress level, they can be examined and people must understand that the chest pain related to cardiac problems is different”. According to experts, a lot of criticism regarding gyms is also growing among the youths. Actor Puneeth Rajkumar died of a heart attack shortly after his workout at his gym at home.
D Steve, the founder of Bengaluru’s Steve Gym, cleared the ongoing myth associated with cardiac arrest. He stated, “Now people have the fear that if they go to the gym and do aggressive exercise they may suffer a heart attack. That is not correct. Gym has nothing to do with heart attack”. The state government is developing gym guidelines. Dr K Sudhakar, the Health Minister, drafted the recommendations in consultation with a few prominent cardiologists, including Dr Devi Shetty and Dr Manjunath.
