A GNA feature by Muniratu Akweley Issah
Accra, October 26, GNA – Mr. Frank Addo, a 38-year-old commercial driver and a family of five is currently bedridden, suffering from a stroke.
Mr. Addo, a lively family man suffered a sudden stroke while driving and could no longer continue his journey and was rushed to hospital.
Unfortunately, he could no longer recognize his family and could no longer wake up to do anything on his own.
Medical tests confirmed that Mr. Addo was unknowingly hypertensive at the time and was also diagnosed with type II diabetes, which was also high.
His wife, Mrs. Vida Owusu, said her husband was not aware of his condition as he hardly went for a check-up or check-up to know his condition.
She said her husband rarely stayed home to rest and usually spent most of his time with friends for a routine drink after the day’s work.
Mr. Addo is currently incapacitated and can no longer care for his family, a situation that has brought financial constraints to his family.
His wife who worked in a corporate environment quit her job to stay home and take care of him, putting a financial burden on his wife and family members.
WHERE
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) kill 41 million people each year, equivalent to 74 percent of all deaths worldwide.
He said that each year, 17 million people die from NCDs before the age of 70, with an estimated 86 percent of these premature deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries.
NCDs are caused by rapid unplanned urbanization with unhealthy lifestyles and population growth. Unhealthy diet and lack of physical activity can occur in people with high blood pressure, elevated blood glucose, elevated blood lipids, and obesity.
Available statistics show that non-communicable diseases are on the rise worldwide and Ghana’s situation is no different from the global situation.
Dr Efua Commeh, Deputy Program Director, Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs), Ghana Health Service (GHS), revealed that about 53 percent of Ghana’s death rate was due to NCDs, accounting for more than half of the recorded deaths in the country.
He said: “A few years ago, you would have been more concerned about infectious diseases. among others, cholera, diarrheal diseases, drug-induced respiratory diseases and HIV, but currently, the situation has changed.”
She expressed concern as lifestyle diseases, including hypertension and cancers, have become common, affecting the lives of Ghanaians as the country evolves into a lower middle income country.
“It’s a natural phenomenon and as our lifestyles change, we adapt to more unhealthy risk factors. Thus, risk factors such as smoking, alcohol consumption, unhealthy lifestyles, physical inactivity, overweight and obesity seem to increase, and when the risk factors are high then the resulting outcomes also increase.
An estimated 1.28 billion adults aged 30–79 years worldwide have hypertension with (two-thirds) of them living in low- and middle-income countries and more than 700 million people living with untreated hypertension.
Causes of hypertension
Hypertension is caused when the pressure in the blood vessels is too high, which usually develops over time. Blood pressure is considered high when the temperature is 140/90 mmHg or higher.
In 2022, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) recorded over 600,000 cases of hypertension in the Outpatient Department (OPD). The number included already diagnosed and newly diagnosed people.
According to the WHO, hypertension killed 190,000 Ghanaians in 2019.
Dr. Efua Commeh, who spoke to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), acknowledged the fact that the situation was challenging since hypertension is said to be a silent killer and shows no symptoms, adding that people know their condition when it starts. face complications such as stroke, kidney failure and heart attack among others at an advanced stage.
He said the majority of Ghanaians are not aware of their health status, especially the “silent killer”, hypertension disease
He said: “A lot more of our people won’t go to hospital when they’re sick and we’re seeing more of the complications in our system, which shows there’s a lot of undiagnosed cases coming in either brought in dead because they’ve collapsed suddenly or had a stroke. The ‘what a shock’ oh, there was nothing wrong with him or her, and they just collapsed, mostly they happen as a result of complications of high blood pressure.’
“We are also seeing more and more young people experiencing these complications, which are serious. At the Renal Unit of Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, we have to treat many more people for kidney failure and one of the most common risk factors is high blood pressure,” he added.
Dr Commeh noted that lifestyle changes such as consumption of unhealthy food and drinks predispose Ghanaians to NCDs, adding that carbonated drinks that children take at school and everywhere else tend to predispose us to non-communicable diseases.
We are also seeing more and more young people face these complications as relatives develop kidney failure, placing a huge burden on their families while affecting the nation’s productive workforce.
Meanwhile, the Obligation Program Officer made it known that type II diabetes was also on the rise, affecting many young people and due to lifestyle conditions.
Diabetes
“Diabetes to me is worse than hypertension because it destroys every blood vessel in the body. So the complications creep up on you before you realize your heart is affected, your kidneys are affected, your limbs are affected and sometimes you need amputation and all of that.”
And then the additional things like obesity, alcohol, cigarette consumption, high blood sugar, high cholesterol. These are risk factors that predispose people to diabetes.
Air pollution has also been identified as a major cause of NCDs, as the toxins people breathe in predispose them to the disease. These include inhaling smoke from tailpipes, vehicle fumes, burning tires and garbage and factories that produce a lot of smoke.
Dr Commeh said that as more people grew into adulthood, awareness of the disease was essential to enable the public to develop healthier habits, adding that it was important to start with children at a younger age to instill in them the habit of they eat. healthy foods and a healthier life.
“We need to know that NCDs are on the rise and we need to know that for most of them, our lifestyle choices will make a big difference and as a family, it’s important to adopt healthier lifestyles.
“Nutritional issues are important when it comes to our children, so they grow up knowing healthier choices and once practiced, it becomes normal and she recommends that their parents follow suit.”
He urged the public to engage in physical activity by ensuring regular exercise or incorporating a walk into their routine, which would help strengthen muscles, and advised those who could not afford to develop strategies to help them become active.
“If your job is such that you can’t do structured physical activity or go to the gym, just walking around your house and doing it a few times would help. Taking 10,000 steps a day is ideal, if not the minimum you should be doing is about 6,000 steps a day, to prevent overweight and obesity, which are risk factors for NCDs. ”
Workers are advised to get out of their chairs and move around every two hours to exercise their muscles or go up and down the stairs a few times every two hours.
Dieting
He emphasized the intake of fruit and vegetables as part of everyone’s diet, while reducing sugar and salt, and avoiding fatty foods, urging the public to minimize the use of spiced cubes in food preparation, as most of them are very high in in salt.
She expressed concern that most young people had resorted to inhaling hookah, which has so much nicotine, she said these things may seem trendy but the effect can be harmful.
Prevention, they say, is better than cure, and experts continue to trumpet the need to ensure disease prevention, especially hypertension, by following the information and education provided and ensuring a much healthier nation.
Annual medical checkups according to experts are very necessary, at least once a year, just go and do your labs, blood sugar and lipid profile, let them do a review and if there is a problem, you can connect with care while People who have already been diagnosed are advised to pay attention to their medication to control their condition.
The Program Director said that funding has become necessary and called on the government, institutions and organizations to commit resources to NCD prevention and control as the disease is taking a greater toll on the country.
He believed that committing enough resources to education, disease prevention and management, and training would help achieve Sustainable Development Goal Three, which seeks to reduce premature mortality from non-communicable diseases by a third through prevention and treatment and promotion of mental health. health and wellness.
“We need funds to undertake training and logistics because you can’t ask someone to check blood pressure when you don’t have machines to check, we need funding to produce educational materials to educate the public about best practice,” he said. .
GNA