A senior consultant cardiologist, Apollo Hospital, India, Dr. Rajeeve Kumar Rajput, has called for the establishment of more coronary health facilities in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in view of the rising incidences of coronary diseases globally. Speaking to journalists yesterday in Abuja, the expert decried the low rate of cardiology hospitals, saying the ones available are not commiserate with the city population. He said: “I spoke to the doctors who came here and discovered that there are only two hospitals offering cardiology services with one centre doing it sometimes. It is not routinely available in Abuja with about 4 million populations. If it were in a developed country we’ll need to have about 12 to 15 cardiology hospitals to take care of cardiac problems.”

He, however, noted that health in all developing countries do not get as much money as it should, noting that the world’s renown health specialist state, Delhi in India, was in the same state about 10 to 15 years ago. “What we have today is a general reflection of the development of the economy. When you have better economy, better education and infrastructure, better hospitals will naturally come up. There is no country in the world which does not have good facilities and good hospitals, the two go together.” Rajput also added that a lot needs to be done to train local doctors in Abuja, saying, “The information I have is that there are only two big cardiac centres here and the two are not offering the best services; there is room for improvement.”