30,000 cardiologists arrive in Barcelona for the world's largest heart specialist conference
This Saturday the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), the most world's most important heart specialist conference, will begin in Barcelona. Up until the 3rd of September the Catalan capital will host 30,000 cardiology specialist participants in a summit where 4,500 new studies will be presented about the latest discoveries in vascular diseases, which cause 47% of deaths in Europe. The Catalan Minister for Health, Boi Ruiz, said that efforts should be concentrated on reducing the "inequality" between different areas of the world which register mortality rates that are "unreasonably different".
Barcelona (ACN).- This Saturday the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), the most world's most important heart specialist conference, will begin in Barcelona. Up until the 3rd of September the Catalan capital will host 30,000 cardiology specialist participants in a summit where 4,500 new studies will be presented about the latest discoveries in vascular diseases, which cause 47% of deaths in Europe. The Catalan Minister for Health, Boi Ruiz, in conjunction with the ESC and the Spanish Society of Cardiology (SEC), said that efforts should be concentrated on reducing the "inequality" between different areas of the world which register mortality rates that are "unreasonably different". The ESC will be held in Fira de Barcelona's Gran Via venue, the largest and most important conference centre in the Catalan capital.
The President of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), Panos Vardas, has remarked that Barcelona is the appropriate city to host the conference due to the "institutional support" which the summit has received alongside the "infrastructure offered by the city". Vardas added that the congress would "raise awareness" of cardiovascular disease within the city which would favourably affect "the economy".
The Director of the scientific program of the ESC Congress 2014, Keith Fox, said that they had received 11,444 scientific studies, of which 4,500 had been selected to represent the main discoveries within this field. Around 300 of these studies are from Spain, among which 80 are Catalan. Fox has assured that the scientific advances that will be presented within the conference are very relevant and crucial to improving the quality of care of patients with cardiovascular-related diseases.
The ESC coordinator for the local press, Lina Badimón, announced that "the biggest news within the conference will be the focus on new therapies, management of coronary artery disease and lipids, new devices and interventions in heart failure, new data on dealing with heart attacks and the latest research on atrial fibrillation".
She revealed that some of the "very early studies need further validation, but others are already undergoing "tests with a number of patients" which are conclusive and will change clinical practise. Badimón promised that the results that will be announced will be "really interesting".
An important conference within the healthcare community
The Catalan Minister of Health, Boi Ruiz, hopes that the congress will emphasise the guidance that cardiology has always given about the necessity of understanding medicine as a "holistic" concept. He states that health policies should cover all aspects which affect the healthy condition of a person "in reference to their genetic code, their postal code, their social origin, their dietary habits and their physical activity".
Ruiz has been very critical of the fact that the Spanish Government continues to invest less money in healthcare than the European average. He pointed out, "you cannot ask for more professionals in the country when no one makes an effort to prioritise health in budgetary terms".
The President of the Spanish Society of Cardiology (SEC), José Ramon González-Juanatey, has also been very critical of the Spanish Government's policy that has prioritised public works and, according to him, has forgotten two important pillars of society, "health and education". He went on to highlight that the society's objective was to "fight" again this injustice that exists in Spain.
"It cannot be that Catalonia has developed a code of action in the case of heart attacks that has reduced this disease by 50%" and other Autonomous Communities with the power to do it "do not have the capability to implement an effective protocol" so that the procedure is different "depending on the medical centre".
González-Juanatey has also warned that, after a very positive evolution in the reduction of deaths associated to cardiovascular diseases, this year they will present a graph which shows a "plateau", demonstrating that the figures have stagnated "since 2012" and have even started to grow again since the beginning of this year. The President of the Society stated that this phenomenon was directly related to "the economic crisis".