Member Article

Female Heart Attack Victims Slow To Hospital

It takes women five times as long as men to get to casualty departments when having a heart attack, according to research by Ireland’s Health Research Board.

The average time it took women to get to hospital after the onset of initial symptoms was 14 hours, compared with 2.8 hours for men. A previous paper by the team, on what happened to the same patients when they actually arrived at the hospitals, found that women also waited longer than men to be admitted and treated.

“This means that women not only took longer to be treated when they got to the hospital, they also took considerably longer to get there in the first case” says Dr O’Donnell. “Prompt treatment is essential in heart attacks and these delays mean that women are more likely to suffer complications.” The research also found that one in 14 men having a heart attack drove themselves to hospital.

“Driving during a heart attack is obviously extremely dangerous for both the driver and the general public.” says author of the Report Sharon O’Donnell from the City’s Trinity College. “People who drove themselves to the hospital said they did it because it was the quickest way to get to the hospital, they felt well enough to make the journey and they would have pulled over if necessary. “However, many also reported that they felt they were going to collapse when they arrived in the casualty department.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .