He said the treatment of acute and life-threatening conditions such as heart attack is insufficient in the country on World Heart Day which was held on Sunday at various places in the UAE.
“Most things need to be improved here, from the triage to the logistics to the final treatment. If you have a heart attack here then your chances of survival will be far below the average offered in more developed countries,” says Dr Kallmayer who established one of the first credible acute heart attack programmes in Germany.
Heart disease and heart attack remains the number one killer through natural death worldwide. “This is certainly the case in the UAE, with prevalent risk factors like obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure and, with continued sedentary lifestyles, the death toll is set to rise dramatically in the future,” he predicts.
He said many patients in the UAE are not being treated properly during their ‘Golden Hour’ as a result of this shortfall, dying unnecessary deaths.
“As the tools were already available, we just had to devise the logistics,” Kallmayer added. Meanwhile, the Dubai Health Authority launched a campaign to raise awareness on cardiovascular diseases. The campaign “Healthy Life and Healthy Heart” is organised by the Primary Health Care (PHC) sector and aims to disseminate information to the different sections of the society.
The Department of Naturalisation and Residency will be the first to receive educational information that will help reduce the factors causing heart diseases including weight management and regular exercising.
Dr Ahmed Kalban, head of Prime Health Care said the main objective of the campaign was the early detection of factors leading to heart diseases.
The authority will conduct free examinations for the staff and outsiders for three days. Blood pressure, body fat, weight, and height, eating patterns and the total body mass will be taken into account during the tests.