Hungarian doctors poor healers of heart attacks

The decisive majority of primary care physicians mismanage myocardial infarctions - heart attacks - wrote Wednesday's national daily Nepszabadsag citing a five-year study conducted by an emergency services expert.

Bela Burany monitored primary care responses to MIs throughout the city of Kiskunhalas, (S Hungary) - population 140,000 - over a five-year period, and conducted later studies to ascertain that his findings were typical, the paper wrote.

Sixty-two percent of primary care physicians did not call for specially equipped emergency vehicles, 31 percent failed to stay with the patient until an ambulance arrived, 27 percent did not prepare EKGs, and 66 percent failed to provide medication. The study also found that 7.8 percent of MI patients were seen repeatedly by one or more doctors before action was taken.

Noting that a 30-minute delay in providing treatment reduces survival chances by 7.5 percent, Burany said his study had led to a series of courses for primary care physicians, which did not lead to improvements in treatment statistics.

Dr. Gerda Loczy, one of the doctors in charge of the training courses, said it would be important for doctors to tell their high-risk patients what symptoms to watch for and what to do if they notice them, Nepszabadsag wrote.

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