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He was walking to the newspaper that morning he suffered the heart attack. There were just two blocks left to arrive to his job when he started feeling his arms heavy; he was sweating a lot and a pain on his heart’s side that was increasing. As he was used to read about health topics, Manuel Fernandez Malagon could realize that something was going wrong with his heart. He found a telephone and asked for help. He was immediately transferred to the Cardiologic and Surgery Institute. There were 20 minutes since he felt his first symptoms until he received specialized medical assistance.
Those were the signs of the heart attack, but for a while, he used to feel suffocated or with claustrophobia at night. He thought they were the results of his back bone problems or the stress for the job, but his sedentary work and his nicotine dependence for more than 50 years- since he was 13- made him a dirty play; one of his heart’s veins was obstructed and the 70 percent of the other was too. He had quit smoking some months before.
After the heart attack there started the meditations: he was not going to make plans anymore, his life was finished; however, with the rehab and contact with other patients, he learned to live in another way. He organized his activities; he has a diet according to his suffering, he does physical exercises, restarted working again and he dreams to be socially helpful for many years.
The Heart’s Day
The World Health Organization (WHO) and UNESCO had designed September 29 as the day to inform about this suffering due to the increase of this chronic illness; to prevent, control and treat this disease.
The first celebration was in 2000 and at present, more than 200 countries celebrate this day. There is the need to get people conscious on the cardiovascular problems, which are the first cause for death in the world. The most lethal are the heart attack of the myocardium and the brain vascular accidents, which together cause more than 13,3 million death a year.
It either affects children or adults, men or women, and the broadcast is not promising if we take into consideration that for 2030, it is expected the figure will increase to 25 million if there are no measures that try to decrease them.
The good news is that we can prevent this disease; so, this year, organizations involved had decided to emphasize on: Undertaking the course to a healthy heart, with a call to create healthy spaces in the workplaces and communities.
The so called plan of the UN 25 x 25 has the goal to carry out a prevention campaign to decrease them in a 25 percent in 2025.
Prevention program
Doctor in Science Eduardo Rivas, president of the Cuban Cardiology Society said Cuba has a preventive, diagnose, treatment and rehab program for more than 20 years sponsored by the Ministry of Health.
The Cardiologic and Surgery Institute is a reference entity, and there are programs in all provinces. We have very clear the concept of the determination of risk in the early detection of the disease.”
Hearts and vascular-brain diseases are treated with a strategy because they are both due to the same cause and factors of risks. They have the same etymology and ways to face them from the medical point of view and the measures to take.
“These clinical manifestations are related to life systems that are harmful: the feeding bad habit, smoking, obesity tendency, lack of systematic physical exercises, the lack of control of mellitus diabetes and hypertension.
“It is very important to educate the population to have health habits.”
