A new study has revealed that more than 33,000 people have died needlessly in the past decade, as a result of poor care following a heart attack under government-run healthcare in the UK. The study analyzed almost 400,000 cases of non-ST elevation heart attacks, in 247 hospitals across England and Wales, in the decade leading up to 2013. They checked if each patient received the 13 treatments recommended in international guidelines post-heart attack, including scans, medical advice and certain drugs.
The Daily Mail reports that in a whopping 87 percent of the cases, patients failed to receive one or more of these vital interventions. For example, drugs such as aspirin that prevent clotting can reduce the risk of another heart attack, while scans such as ECGs can check electrical activity in the heart and uncover hidden problems. Moreover, in many instances, doctors did not give patients valuable advice about changing their lifestyles to cut their risk of another heart attack, such as quitting smoking, embarking on a sound fitness training regimen, and making dietary improvements. READ MORE
