Heart at Work

WEALTH PROTECTION

ANNIE FREEDA CRUEZ
The workplace is the ideal venue to start revamping your health status because ill health has a direct effect on productivity. ANNIE FREEDA CRUEZ writes of a Wellness at Workplace campaign.

OVER 17.2 million people die each year from cardiovascular diseases, making these the leading cause of death worldwide.

Yet 80 per cent of premature deaths from heart disease and stroke could be avoided by controlling the main risk factors: tobacco use, an unhealthy diet and physical inactivity.

In Malaysia, heart diseases and diseases of pulmonary circulation are the top causes of deaths in government hospitals.

National Heart Association (NHAM) president Professor Dr Sim Kui Hian says the nation is losing thousands of people in their productive age to cardiovascular diseases each year.

According to him, the disease burden in 2002 is: 37,020 people were admitted with ischemic heart disease, 10,242 with heart failure, 1,923 with hypertension with heart disease and 33,514 with hypertension without mention of heart disease, in government hospitals nationwide.

Stub out that cigarette and eat healthier food.
Of these, he added, 2,556 died from heart attacks, 891 from heart failure, 21 from hypertension with heart disease and 134 from hypertension without mention of heart disease.

He said the data for Malaysia Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) surveillance 2005/06 revealed that about 11.6 million adults aged 25-64 years were having at least one NCD risk factor. Only three per cent of Malaysian adults did not have a risk factor.

The prevalence of raised blood pressure was 25.7 per cent. The prevalence for men and women was 26.3 per cent and 25.0 per cent respectively.

It was estimated about 3.1 million or one in four adults aged 25-64 years had elevated blood pressure.

The estimated number of known hypertensives and the newly diagnosed were 1.4 and 1.7 million respectively.

Based on ethnicity, the prevalence of raised blood pressure was highest among Chinese (31.0 per cent) followed by Malays (23.4 per cent) and Indians (21.6 per cent).

In view of this alarming situation, Dr Sim said, workplace health promotion focused on reduction of risk-related behaviour such as tobacco use, physical inactivity and poor nutrition.

“Our aim is to improve workers’ health and reduce their stress, reduce workforce turnover, organisational conflict and absenteeism,” he added.

He said having a healthy employee also helps improve decision-making ability, morale and loyalty and create a healthier organisational culture.

World Heart Day 2009 dedicated the theme “Working towards Wellness” as part of its commitment to the World Economic Forum Initiative.

Dr Sim said the reason why there should be workplace wellness was because almost half of those who die from chronic diseases were in their productive years.

Furthermore, he added, the economic consequences due to productivity reduction and increase in cost caused by these diseases was dramatic.

Dr Sim said losses in productivity associated with diseases like disability, unplanned absences and increased accidents were as much as 400 per cent more than the cost of treatment.

Workplace programmes, he said, can achieve 25-30 per cent reduction in medical and absenteeism costs in an average period of about 3.6 years.

He added it had been proven that workplace programmes had shown a 27 per cent reduction in sick leave absenteeism, 26 per cent reduction in healthcare costs and 32 per cent reduction in workers’ compensation and disability claims.

“A workplace wellness programme does not need to be complex or expensive,” said Dr Sim, adding large corporations should offer workplace health programmes as their corporate agenda while in smaller businesses or where people are self-employed, the onus has to be on the individuals.

He said employers should offer information to workers via leaflets telling them about the risk factors for heart disease and stroke besides establishing health policies such as no tobacco use in the building, encourage good eating habits and exercising during breaks, and easy access to drinking water.

Employees, Dr Sim said, should eat at least five servings of fruit and vegetables a day in addition to having at least 30 minutes of some form of exercise which can help prevent heart attacks and strokes.

“Take the stairs, go for a walk during your break, or get off the bus a couple of stops earlier and walk the rest of the way,” he added.

He said it was also advisable to use less salt, avoid processed food, say no to tobacco and maintain a healthy weight.

The NHAM together with Philips Malaysia has taken the lead to create awareness of heart health in, for a start, selected companies in Klang Valley.

“We are committed to working with the medical community, corporations and government to increase awareness of preventive heart health and raise the standard of cardiac care for Malaysians,” said Lee Weng Seong, chairman and CEO of Philips Group of Companies, Malaysia.

The NHAM-Philips World Heart Day Wellness at Workplace campaign will run at workplaces as part of overall occupational health and safety. They will offer to conduct free sessions to educate employees on stress management, general heart health and risk assessment.

The first of such sessions will be held with the employees of Digi. Dr Sim and Lee together with cardiologists from the association will give talks to staff on how to take care of their health, especially their heart.

Lee said they hoped to hold such sessions in at least two companies this month before continuing with the programme after New Year’s Day.