Heart attacks: Women dying 'needlessly' due to treatment gender gap
Coronary heart disease kills twice as many women as breast cancer in the UK, but it has "never been more treatable", experts say.
Monday 30 September 2019 09:51, UK
Image: About 35,000 women are admitted to hospital following a heart attack in the UK each year
Thousands of women in the UK are dying needlessly from heart attacks because the treatment they receive is worse than that given to men.
The British Heart Foundation (BHF) has said more than 8,000 women died in England and Wales between 2003 and 2013 due in part to a "heart attack gender gap" leading to inequalities in awareness, diagnosis and treatment.
In a new report, the charity pointed to a common idea that heart attacks happen to men and said women are slow to get help when they suffer symptoms.
Heart attack survivor Shernaz Engineer told Sky News she suffered increasingly strong symptoms before seeking help.
It started with pain in her left arm, which spread to her chest and back but she didn't go to hospital until it was "so excruciating" she couldn't lie down in bed.
When told she had had a heart attack, she didn't believe it as "it's not a woman's disease", she said.
But coronary heart disease - the underlying cause of most heart attacks - kills twice as many women as breast cancer in the UK, the BHF said.
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Almost 100 women a day (around 35,000) are admitted to hospital after a heart attack in the UK each year, the charity added.
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More than 8,200 heart attack deaths in women in England and Wales - the equivalent of two a day - could have been prevented If they received the same standard of care as men, a BHF-funded study at the University of Leeds estimated.
Women are 50% more likely than men to receive a wrong initial diagnosis when they are having a heart attack, increasing their risk of death.
Julie Ward, a senior cardiac nurse at the BHF, told Sky News: "A lot of women don't recognise the symptoms. They don't seek medical treatment and they don't get help."
To make matters worse, she added, women also aren't getting the same after-care as men, including missing out on heart attack rehab, which she described as a "very successful programme".
"Less women go to the sessions, possibly because of added responsibilities," she said.
Dr Sonya Babu-Narayan, consultant cardiologist and BHF associate medical director, said the charity was highlighting a "deeply entrenched issue which manifests itself in a series of unconscious biases", rather than accusing any individual or organisation.
"Heart attacks have never been more treatable," she said. "Yet women are dying needlessly because heart attacks are often seen as a man's disease, and women don't receive the same standard of treatment as men."
"The studies detailed in this briefing have revealed inequalities at every stage of a woman's medical journey. The reasons for this are complex to dissect. Together, we must change this."