Cardiologist distributes emergency heart attack kits

Mangaluru: Dr Padmanabh Kamath, HoD, cardiology and professor KMC, Mangaluru, who is on a mission to provide ECG machines, especially in rural public health centres (PHCs) through the Cardiology At Doorstep (CAD) initiative, is now distributing emergency medicine kits to deal with heart attacks.
On Thursday, troponin assay kits (for rapid detection of heart attacks) were handed over to remote PHCs of Balehole and Basarikatte in Chikkamagaluru.
“This scheme under CAD intends to cover 1,000 PHCs of the state that haven’t received ECG machines yet,” Dr Padmanabh Kamath told TOI.
He said, according to 2017 statistics, Karnataka has 2,500 PHCs. These kits will help diagnose heart attacks.
Nearly 1,000 PHCs across Karnataka have been identified as highly sensitive centres, and they will receive these kits as part of the first phase of the programme. Meanwhile, CAD has already installed 200 ECG machines across 12 districts. “Troponins are cardiac enzymes which gets elevated during early hours after a heart attack (within 4 hours). These kits are currently unavailable in most of the remote PHCs. The kits will be an important tool in the armamentarium for diagnosis.
Each kit contains loading dose of aspirin, clopidogrel, sublingual fast action nitrate, loading dose of statins and a pack of 10 rapid assay Trop I kit,” he said.
Earlier, the kits were very expensive, but currently, each kit costs Rs 100.
“Though they may not be 100 per cent effective, they play a vital role during the crucial hour. In the absence of ECG, these medicines can provide relief to the patients, till he is shifted to a higher facility. So far, about 50 kits have been distributed, and they have helped in dealing with at least 20-25 cases of acute myocardial infarction. The practise of giving chewable dispersible aspirin (dispirins) is still not widely followed during acute phase of heart attack. Enteric coates aspirin is not effective during acute heart attacks,” said Dr Kamath.
Dr Sathish Kumar, a private practitioner near the Kateel Durgaparameshwari Temple, who has been using the ECG machine as well as these tablets provided by CAD, said at least 15 acute myocardial cases were treated and then sent to other places for better treatment.
“We have been recording a high success rate in dealing with cardiac patients,” he said.