Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, June 18: Rural population is less well off than the urban population with respect to deliverance of healthcare, according to Dr Sushil Sharma, HoD Cardiology, Government Medical College, Jammu.
He said this while screening inhabitants of the village Sudh Mahadev in Udhampur district as a part of his ongoing campaign to apprise the general populace about the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases. Blood Pressure and Blood Glucose (sugar) was measured. Lipid Profile tests and ECG was also performed as per need. More than 400 people were evaluated, screened and free drugs were distributed as per their requirement.
Dr Sharma said it has been observed during the process of this health awareness campaign that majority of the people screened were found to be hypertensive.
“Most of them with hypertension were previously known to have hypertension while very least number of people had hypertension and were unaware of their condition. Even there is high prevalence of overweight and obese among screened population particularly women. Moreover the prevalence of daily tobacco smoking is significantly higher in this area. Besides there is low literacy level in area which is a potent risk factor in developing cardiovascular diseases because those with better education are more informed about good health practices and may adopt healthier behaviour instead these challenges call of a social perspective with a focus on prevention and healthy lifestyle,” he added.
He said the limited access to rural healthcare is generally associated with effect that there are few providers. “Rural residents usually travel long distance from village to primary healthcare centre or higher level hospitals to deal with complicated situation to receive better services. Rural residents are older, poorer and have fewer physicians to care for them,” he emphasized.
Led by Dr Sushil Sharma, the team, which was part of this effort, included Dr Mohi Kalsotra, Dr Kewal Sharma, Dr Dhaneshwar Kapoor and Dr Akhil Gupta. Volunteers and paramedics included Vikas Kumar, Kamal Sharma , Raghav Rajput,Aman Gupta, Rajinder Singh, Harvinder Singh , Gourav Sharma, Suresh Sharma, Ankush Kohli,Vikas Sabharwal and Raj Kumar.
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