AFC Health Fortis Heart Institute is Bangladesh's first international cardiac chain of hospitals. At present they have three full cardiac hospitals in Khulna (52 beds), Chattogram (63 beds), Cumilla (150 beds) and one outreach centre in Jashore. India's leading cardiac hospital Fortis Escorts provides technical assistance to all the facilities. Nazeem A Choudhury, Director & Chief Executive of AFC Health Ltd. talks to The Daily Star about various aspects of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) in Bangladesh and what treatment facilities they are providing to CVD patients.

How do you analyse the current situation of cardiovascular diseases in Bangladesh?

In short – not good. Our lifestyle, our food habit, environmental pollution – all these contribute significantly towards heart diseases. According to World Life Expectancy Research (https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/country-health-profile/bangladesh), cardiac diseases are the second largest killer after stroke in Bangladesh. This gives a clear indication about the scope and management condition of cardiac patients in our country. There are simply not enough hospitals or centres to treat patients afflicted with this common disease.

Another big challenge is skilled technical hands. As you know all the good hospitals in the private sector are based in Dhaka and skilled healthcare professionals don't want to move to the peripheries of the country. This has become a burning issue in the private healthcare sector.

What facilities is your hospital offering to treat cardiovascular diseases?

Our main objective is to bring cardiac care of international standard to the doorstep of the people of Bangladesh. With this objective in mind, we have established hospitals in different locations like Khulna, Chattogram and Cumilla and we will continue to do so in other parts of the country. There are some good private facilities in Dhaka city but periphery has none before us. It's very difficult to transfer a patient with a medical condition to another city.

Let me give you an example of Khulna. We did 392 primacy Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCIs) last year. Primary PCI is a critical cardiac procedure performed on a patient who has had a massive heart attack. It's a gold standard lifesaving procedure with more than 95 percent success rate recommended by American Heart Association and European Society of Cardiology. It produces good results if done within 3 to 4 hours of the onset of a heart attack. Transferring a patient who has undergone such a serious heart attack could be life-threatening. We are now providing the service of giving such lifesaving treatment facilities in the peripheries.

We have highly experienced consultants and medical care professionals at all of our centres. All of our patients are covered 24/7 by postgraduate doctors. Our senior-level consultants are also available 24/7 for any medical needs even if it is the middle of the night. All our critical care patients are monitored day and night through E-ICU from India. This is a new unique concept in Bangladesh. We have launched the first ever Cardiac OT for surgeries and Cath Lab for cardiac procedures in the southern region. Our Chattogram unit's Cath Lab has IFR/FFR facility—the first of its kind in the country—and Cardiac OT is Modular which is also unique in Chattogram. We also perform 24/7 primary PCI for patients with massive/acute heart attack. There are only 2-3 centres other than us across the county which perform primary PCI 24/7.Our doctors pay complimentary visits to every heart surgery and primary PCI patient as part of the home care programme.

We have a unique proposition at our hospitals. In case of the death of a patient, we waive the bill of the last 24 hours. This is our way of empathising with the bereaved family.

What is AFC Health's future plan?

AFC plans to open a chain of specialised treatment facilities in the regions of Sylhet, Bogura, Barishal, Mymensingh, Narayanganj and Dhaka. The rest of the districts where we are not setting up full-fledged hospitals will have an outreach centre. The outreach centre will have all emergency cardiac care management facilities with individual ICUs, labs, dialysis and ambulance facilities. Currently, one outreach centre is in operation at Jashore and another will be in operation soon at Satkhira. We wish to step into every district of Bangladesh. We have online medicine delivery service which can be availed through our mobile app. We want to extend this programme to 64 districts of Bangladesh. AFC Health aims to provide comprehensive healthcare service to the people of Bangladesh.