Heart Health Crisis

The image of doctors, nurses, and students rowing across Dal Lake on World Heart Day was striking. In their white coats, holding fluttering banners, they cut a picture of both hope and warning. The rally, organised by the Department of Cardiology at SKIMS, was a reminder that heart health is no longer a private matter inside hospitals, it is a public issue that touches every household in the valley.

That reminder is urgently needed. Heart disease has emerged as one of Kashmir's gravest health concerns, and it is no longer confined to the elderly. Increasingly, cardiologists are treating patients in their thirties and forties with blocked arteries once seen only in those decades older. Doctors at SKIMS warn that this shift represents not just individual tragedies but a looming epidemic.

The reasons are many, and they are familiar. Unhealthy diets, sedentary routines, smoking, and mounting stress have combined to push the population towards risk. The harsh winter months worsen the situation: people remain indoors, gain weight, and see their blood pressure and cholesterol rise. Senior cardiologists estimate a 20 to 40 percent spike in heart attacks during the cold season.

But lifestyle alone does not explain the surge. Substance abuse, particularly heroin and opioids, has become a serious driver of cardiovascular emergencies. At the same time, diabetes and hypertension are on the rise, with surveys showing nearly 9 percent of the region's population living with diabetes. Add to this the heavy burden of mental health problems, estimated in a 2016 Doctors Without Borders report to affect 1.8 million people in J&K, and the scale of the challenge becomes clear. Stress and depression, left untreated, feed directly into the crisis of the heart.

Much of this is preventable though. That is, if people go for regular checkups, healthier diets, and exercise. Similarly, awareness about smoking and substance abuse can drastically reduce risk. But as things stand, this is not how it is: patients arrive at hospitals late, when precious minutes have already been lost. At the same time, there is lack of swift emergency response, which often turns treatable cases into fatal ones.

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