A heart screening event was organized by Nepal Heart Foundation from 9th of June to 14th of June by the project supported by Edwards Lifesciences foundation named "Heart Screening of School Children". This event included five rural districts: Kalikot, Jumla, Mugu, Dailekh and Surkhet.  Following activities were carried out on that day, heart screening of school children, Public interaction program, and Heart health screening camp, and meeting with local bodies of respected districts.  15 people participated in the event namely:

 

Mr. Dipendra P. Dhakal

Dr. Prakash Raj Regmi

Dr. Satya Narayan Suwal

Mr. Dilli P. Ghimire

Dr. Urmila Shakya

Dr. Prem Raj Vaidhya

Dr. Achutananda Lal Karn

Dr. Kishan Kushwaha

Mr. Dev P. Gautam

Mr. Anmol Maharjan

Ms. Bimala Maharjan

Mr. Mohan Shrestha

Mr. Keshav Dhakal

Mr. Bhanubhakta Ojha

Mr. Hemraj Joshi.

 

A total heart screening 12945 students were done from 9th June, 2019 to 14th June 2019 at four districts of Nepal, namely Kalikot, Jumla, Mugu, and Dailekh.  All total screening was carried out in 51 schools. Screening was conducted on Kalikot on 9th of June on 25 different schools in which screening of 3969 students were done, like wise on 10th of June, it was held on 5 schools Jumla and screened 3108 students.  On 12th screening of 2945 students from 11 school's Mugu was done.  2923 Students from 10 schools of Dailekh were screened on 13th and 14th of June.

 

During the screening event, students who were suspected of heart disease underwent echocardiography testing by portable echocardiography machine by Dr. Urmila Shakya and Prof. Dr. Prakash Raj Regmi.  All total of 1309 echocardiography testing were carried out (respectively 409 students from Kalikot, 314 students from Jumla, 289 from Mugu, and 297 from Dailekh).  From the testing, it was found that 35 students are with RHD and 38 are suffering from CHD (14 RHD and 14 CHD in Kalikot, 7 RHD and 10 CHD in Jumla, 6 RHD and 7 CHD in Mugu and 8 RHD and 7 CHD in Dailekh).

 

Among the above mentioned students, 16 students required surgery and they were called in Kathmandu for further check-up and surgical intervention (2 students from Jumla, 3 from Mugu, 5 from Dailekh and 6 from Kalikot).

Public Interaction program was carried out in all districts with more than 300 participants. Dr. Regmi spoke about heart disease and lifestyle modification, likewise, Dr. Vaidya spoke about heart disease in Surkhet.

Heart health screening camp was carried out in all districts, blood sugar and blood pressure were screened of the teachers and local people of the districts and counselling was done by the doctors.  Free heart disease medication for certain time was distributed during the screening camp.

Meeting with local bodies of the respected districts with NHF president and other member was organized in all districts to emphasize the role of NHF and its branches on the heart disease prevention and control and to clarify the roles of NHF.

Event was very fruitful in a sense that it was able to serve lots of underserved people in rural districts, identified the CHD and RHD and referred the students requiring surgery to Shahid Gangalal Hospital for surgical intervention.  Meeting with local bodies were very fruitful as well.  NHF was able to clear out its role and mission to local people and they were convinced to provide the supporting hand to NHF branches.  Heart health camp was able to do screening the risk factors of heart disease among the teachers and local people and give appropriate counselling by doctors and distribute of medication for certain time for control of their diseases.