“In India, in the past five decades, rates of coronary disease among (the) urban population have risen from 4% to around 10%. In 2000, for example, India has lost more than five times as many years of economically productive life to cardiovascular disease than any other country,” says Anil Saxena, associate director, interventional cardiology, Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre, New Delhi. By next year, estimates the World Health Organization (WHO), 60% of the world’s cardiac patients will be Indian.
The Delhi government’s Economic Survey, released in June, shows heart disease is the single biggest killer in the capital. It found that heart attacks killed approximately 15,442 people in 2007—that’s more than diabetes, tuberculosis and cancer put together. Clearly, the statistics are intimidating enough to warrant emergency action.
Could the answer lie in your office?
Experts believe prevention should begin early in life, with education in the classrooms. The battle itself needs to be taken to offices, say some experts. This is the thinking behind the WHO message for World Heart Day this year: Work With Heart (the WHO observes World Heart Day every year on the last Sunday of September; this year, it’s on 27 September).
Also Read How safe are you at work?
“There is a lot of sense behind this prevention strategy, as today we spend more than half of our waking hours working—in office,” says K.K. Sethi, senior cardiothoracic surgeon and chairman, Delhi Heart and Lung Institute, New Delhi. “Besides, it is well proven that young Indians are more prone to heart disease—genetically and otherwise—and it is this group of Indians that is facing the scourge of heart attacks today,” says Anshul Jain, senior cardiologist, Maharaja Agrasen Hospital, New Delhi.
Why should the office care about your health? Advocates say that a healthy employee is a bigger asset—the investment is akin to that made in equipment and training. Besides, the employer has to take responsibility for on-the-job factors that influence employee health. “(The) physical, mental, economic and social well-being of the employees is directly influenced by the workplace,” says Peeyush Jain, principal consultant, cardiology, and head, department of preventive cardiology, Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre, New Delhi. “And the workplace in turn thrives on the optimum working (read: health) of its employees. Thankfully, organizations are now recognizing it and taking steps accordingly.”
When the workplace doesn’t work so well