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‘Are folks dying before they get to hospital?’ asks doctor
DEATH by heart attack is most likely if you’re a woman living in
Cork or Kerry or a man in the Midlands.
People living in the greater Dublin area are least likely to die from
coronary heart disease (CHD) according to a new study.
A link between the higher death rates in the southern counties and low
rates of hospitalisation for CHD has not been ruled out.
“In other words, are folks dying before they get to hospital? That’s
what our results are hinting at,” said Dr Tom O’Hara of the
Trinity Centre for Health Science.
Dr O’Hara’s study, entitled Cardiovascular Disease in Ireland:
Are there Regional and Gender Differences? forms the backbone of a national
audit of cardiovascular health since the launch in 1998 of the Government’s
national cardiovascular strategy Building Healthier Hearts.
The findings of the audit are due to be published by the Health Service
Executive (HSE) next month.
Overall there has been an almost 25 per cent decline in CHD mortality
rates in the five years after the strategy was implemented compared to
the preceding five years but inequalities between regions and gender remain.
While the CHD death rate for women living in Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow
is 100 per 100,000 of the population, in the former Southern Health Board
area the death rate is significantly higher at 116 per 100,000.
For men in the midlands the mortality rate from CHD is 237 per 100,000,
compared to 204 per 100,000 in Dublin, Wicklow and Kildare.
Hospitalisation rates for CHD was highest in the former south-east, midlands,
north-east and north-west health board areas in 2004 and lowest in Cork
and Kerry.
There were also considerable gender differences — the rate of angioplasty
was three times higher among men than women and the rate of coronary artery
bypass grafts were almost five times higher among men than women. |
