Stroke claims 181 lives in Koforidua gov’t hospital

Cerebrovascular Accident (CVA) also known as Stroke claimed the lives of 181 patients out of the 1,389 total deaths recorded in 2016 at the Eastern regional Hospital in Koforidua.

According to Hospital authorities, Stroke has become the leading cause of deaths at the Hospital claiming a total 512 lives within three years. Also, 79 patients died of other heart disease. Meanwhile 3,652 patients attended the facility with hypertension cases in 2016 out of which 1,257 were admitted.

The Medical Director of the Eastern regional Hospital, Dr.Kwame Anim Boamah revealed this during interaction with the media on Friday in Koforidua.

He explained that, bad lifestyle is the fundamental cause of cardiovascular diseases such as high blood, cholesterol levels, diabetes, Hypertension which triggers stroke. He therefore advised for a healthy living and regular check ups to prevent these diseases.

He said most patients who died of stroke visited the facility with very high blood pressure having visited other traditional health facilities to use herbal medicines as alternative cure.

Dr. Kwame Anim Boamah also mentioned that, HIV/AIDS,Chronic Liver Cirrhosis, Pneumonia, Birth Asphyxia, Kidney Diseases, Prostrate Cancer, Breast cancer, and Tuberculosis, Septic Shock, Septicemenia, Prematurity, eclamsia Meningitis, Head injury and Sickle cell, are the top 20 Causes of deaths.

HIV/AIDS killed 134 in 2016 picking the the second spot in the top twenty (20) causes of deaths recorded even though it is a decline in previous year which killed 167.