The records are straight with heart diseases as the number one killer in the world. It is also evident that St Elizabeth‘s Catholic Cardiac Centre Shisong, Bui Division in the North West Region is the lone health facility in the Central African sub-region to face the threatening reality of cardio-vascular diseases.

Celebrated as a divine gift, Cameroon and Africa have been counting the blessings of the Shisong Cardiac Centre with 445 open heart surgeries to show since inception in November 2009. In effect, the Shisong Centre has mobilized to celebrate its 5th anniversary in November 2014 with 286 interventional/corography catheterizations so far registered, 80 Pacemaker implantations and about 26,000 general consultations.

Away from that, the day is early break for the 89 staff of administrators, cardiac surgeons, interventional cardialogists, ECG/ECHO technicians, intensive care and general cardiac nurses and support staff who file out daily for life saving consultations, heart screening tests and some times, mobile clinical activities.

The General Manager of the Shisong Cardiac Centre, Rev. Sister Jethro Nkenglefac, told Cameroon Tribune in Shisong that the Centre has 3,500 mobile clinical consultations to show in 2014 in the North West, West, South West, Littoral and Centre regions, 10,800 ECG and 11,600 heart screening tests.

The 2014 World Heart Day features a difference at the Cardiac Centre with the administration and staff turning full circle after weeklong activities conceived to sensitize the population on killer cardio-vascular diseases.

Massive screening was prominent on September 29, 2014 with a 50 per cent discount, down from the regular FCFA 32,000 for ECG/ECHO, plus sugar analysis, body mass index, weight and vital signs.

Sensitization messages to take home from the Centre encourage physical activities, less TV watching, less stressful discussions, long and good sleep, healthy food, less salt and no smoking at home.

It is all about the hygiene of life from the Cardiac Centre whose promoters, the Tertiary Sisters of St Francis, emerge with strong ethical and managerial principles.

It is also about a Centre that has been complaining of the 3-km road stretch linking Kumbo Town and Shisong to be tarred to enhance patient care. Other challenges staring the Centre in the face, according to Sister Jethro Nkenglefac, include the swelling list of patients because somebody else has to pay for those who cannot afford.

That explains the role of the Shisong Heart Foundation in persuading the population to contribute towards the assistance of poor patients in need of the subsidized, FCFA 3 million for surgery.

The General Manager says other stress points about the centre include the high cost of procuring materials abroad and the very high AES-Sonel bills which the centre has appealed to the government to address.

Communications Officer, Nicoline Wirba Barah, however sounds off about the centre’s bed capacity of 69 for clinicals, 12 intensive care unit beds and the capacity to handle 250 surgeries a year, but for speed brakes which do not help matters.

Their 5th anniversary on November 19, 2014, will coincide with the arrival of an Italian pediatric mission to operate children suffering from congenital heart diseases and other cardio-vascular conditions.