Head of Internal Medicine and Cardiology at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), Dr. Mahendra Carpen, is recommending routine health screenings from as early as age 25 in Guyana, as cases of cardiovascular disease are increasingly being detected among the younger population.
Speaking on an episode of the Starting Point Podcast, Dr. Carpen said that worldwide, cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death, but the problem is even more severe in Guyana. In fact, he said, there has been an alarming shift in just one decade. The Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at GPHC saw over 1,000 patients in 2024, and on the outpatient side, the department saw over 60,000 patient encounters.
“I can tell you what I have seen in just 12 years of practice in Guyana, is very astonishing. When I first came back, the average age of heart attack victims were in the 50s and 60s, now we are seeing the 30 and 40-year-olds, and this is 10 years,” Dr. Carpen stated.
The leading cardiologist further explained that one-third of people admitted to the hospital with massive heart attacks are only then discovering they have underlying conditions such as diabetes.
“What it means is that we don’t have proper screening, and culturally, we tend to go to the hospital only when we get sick,” Dr. Carpen said.
Head of GPHC’s Internal Medicine Department, Dr Mahendra Carpen (News Room/December 30, 2024)
However, Dr. Carpen posited that the detection in the younger population could also be because of improved healthcare.
“We have a lot more healthcare workers who are sensitive and aware of this problem, but it is still frightening that we are having people at this young age coming in with severe cardiovascular disease,” Dr. Carpen said.
And so, he believes that national policies should introduce mandatory screening programmes for chronic diseases like hypertension, diabetes, and high cholesterol well before the global standard of age 40 or 50.
“I believe the Guyanese population should have screening sometime between the ages of 25 and 30,” he said.
Such tests would include height and weight checks, blood pressure monitoring, blood sugar and cholesterol levels, and also assessments for smoking and vaping habits.
“We screen people at an early age, we put them into our risk profile and then we determine our next steps,” Dr. Carpen said.
And while prevention and early detection are key, there is also the aspect of genetics and other uncontrollable factors.
This means that some people will still develop cardiovascular disease despite early interventions.
“The things we can’t change are when you are getting older, you cannot change your age, you cannot change your gender, males are more likely to have cardiovascular diseas,e and we cannot change our ethnicity, persons of South Asian descent are at much higher risk of cardiovascular disease.”
With new hospitals being built, Dr. Carpen believes that the healthcare system will further strengthen to detect and diagnose cardiovascular diseases. The new health facilities will provide for robust cardiac intervention programmes across the country.
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