MP’S HEART HEALTH PLEA
MORE people have died from heart disease in Greater Geelong than in any other Victorian council area in a fiveyear period, new data shows.
Heart Foundation figures reveal that heart disease has claimed the lives of 1235 people from Greater Geelong between 2012 and 2016.
The data also shows 4684 Greater Geelong residents were hospitalised due to heart conditions in the same fouryear period.
Heart Foundation CEO John Kelly said hot spots for heart disease have a large proportion of residents with significant disadvantage who have difficulty accessing services.
“What we are trying to achieve, if we can, is to educate the population about the warning signs of heart disease and get them to have a heart health check,” he said.
The foundation’s findings indicate income size matters as much as traditional risk factors like blood pressure and cholesterol readings when it comes to surviving the disease.
Heart disease is the nation’s leading cause of death, taking over 18,000 lives a year.
Millions of Australians have key risk factors for the disease, but most are unaware it increases their chance of having a heart attack.
News Corp and the Heart Foundation are calling on the federal government to have Medicare fund a Heart Health Check for all Australians aged over 45 and indigenous Australians aged over 35 to cut the death rate.
This check-up will look at a person’s blood pressure, cholesterol, lifestyle factors and smoking status and estimate their risk of having a heart attack in the next five years.
If every middle-aged Australian had this check-up it’s estimated 76,500 heart attacks could be prevented in the next five years. It would also save the economy $1.5 billion.
Royal Australian College of General Practitioners president Harry Nespolon, whose organisation is backing the campaign, said a Medicare rebate for a heart health check would encourage GPs to do the test.
“This check would change the way Medicare funds health, switching from funding illness to funding prevention,” Dr Nespolon said.
The Heart Foundation has mapped the incidence of heart disease and heart disease risks and it has found Victorians have higher blood pressure and cholesterol levels than the national average.
The state is doing well at managing heart disease and has not a single region in the top 20 for heart disease deaths in the nation.
However, more Victorian residents are obese (31.5 per cent) and overweight (36.3 per cent) than the national average.
But we have fewer smokers, with just 13.7 per cent of Victorians smoking daily compared to the national average of 14 per cent. The state also has a lower portion of residents who do no physical activity at all — 16.4 per cent compared to the national average of 18.1 per cent.
According to the Heart Foundation, two-thirds of Australians are overweight or obese, six million have high blood pressure, 5.6 million have high cholesterol, 2.5 million smoke daily and two in three do not do enough exercise.
The public can check their heart health by using the Heart Age Calculator on the Heart Foundation’s website.