Why people must not self-manage hypertension – Enugu Health Commissioner

Obi Emmanuel Ikechukwu, commissioner for Health, Enugu State, in this interview with BusinessDay’s Correspondent, REGIS ANUKWUOJI, explains the relevance of World Hypertension Day and why people should patronise qualified diagnostic clinics. Excerpts:

What is the relevance of this world hypertension day?

The relevance is just that usually what happens on the healthcare space is that the World Health Organisation and other stakeholders usually set out a day to commemorate the awareness on hypertension and several other public health issues. The 17th of May is the day that was set out for the commemoration of the world hypertension day. So, just a system that has been adopted by the health stakeholders worldwide; they pick out several days in a year to commemorate public health diseases as an opportunity to educate the general public on that particular disease and tell people how to prevent it and how to treat it as the case may be.

Talking about diagnosis of hypertension; can you explain further the rudiments to the people?

On the diagnosis of hypertension, usually, blood pressure or raised blood pressure is what you cannot see with your naked eyes and it is difficult for someone to know if he has a raised blood pressure; so, for diagnosis of blood pressure, what we advise clinically is that people should get a diagnosis of high blood pressure from a clinical setting, because we know that they are places where people check their blood pressure randomly and they can erroneously believe that once blood pressure is checked and it happens to be high, somebody might be labelled as hypertensive; it is important to note and the general public should be aware that as much as possible they should try and get a diagnosis of high blood pressure from a proper certified clinical setting. Because usually, it is advised that three blood pressure measurements should be taken, at least, three blood pressure measurement at different intervals should be taken before a clear-cut diagnosis of hypertension is made.

The clinicians understand how this is done; so, it is advised that ones you take a blood pressure measurement and you see that it is high, please go to a certified setting for further follow up so that if it is a clear case of high blood pressure it will be determined and then a proper diagnosis will be given to that person.

Is it advisable for a hypertensive patient to be on drug every time or is there any time such a patient is expected to stop medication?

For now, unfortunately, a diagnosis of hypertension or high blood pressure usually becomes a lifelong situation where the person would most likely continue on medication for the high blood pressure for life. Now, the monitoring of a blood pressure should also be done in a proper clinical setting because the best advice should come from clinicians and there is an erroneous belief that sometimes you might have blood pressure then after a while the blood pressure will be cured; High Blood Pressure is usually not cured, it is usually controlled. So, the control of the blood pressure may require addition or subtraction of some medication during the course of the management; so, it is ill-advised that any one should manage his blood pressure outside the proper clinical setting, because it needs to be monitored clinically and then the best advice given to that person to avoid the complications that can result from it.

Today, some citizens may not be aware of some of the precautions; what is your advice and plans towards getting the people involved?

The message to the people has always been one that we have been sending to the people, the message is simple; whenever somebody feels ill, or uncomfortable and you feel that you might be suffering from a disease condition, we advise that people should go to a certified clinical setting, certified health care establishment to get checked and be properly diagnosed. Our people should avoid going to unqualified people to get medical advice. So, as much as possible we are advising Enugu State citizens to get health checks from certified clinical setting and health establishments for the best outcomes.