Mortality Rates
Mortality rates of infants treated for CHDs can be influenced by multiple factors that occur at home or in the hospital. Factors such as environment and healthcare might be the answer in understanding the difference of mortality statistics. In India, "over 75% of infants born with critical heart disease can survive beyond the 1st year of life" (Mansoori 1). The survival rate is a remarkable statistic considering advancements in medicine and the expansion of hospitals. While the number of infants who do not survive beyond their first year is still significantly high at 25%, the mortality rates in India have slowly gone down to the point that "In-hospital mortality of <5%" (Mansoori 2). Even in a single-digit mortality rate, the mortality of patients in India is higher than in the United States for critical heart disease. In 2011, hospitals in the United States reported that "unadjusted mortality was 3.8%, median length of stay was 6 days, and 21% had 1 or more complications" (Burstein 2). The small difference in percentages accounts for thousands of patients saved through different methods and practices during their recovery stage.
Recovery
Many factors contribute to how a patient recovers and performs in their health based on specific practices and steps taken in the early recovery stages. For most surgeries, one of the most significant factors that contribute to mortality is the lack of awareness. Whether it is on check-ups or diets, these are all critical lifestyle adjustments to ensure a healthy outcome. If there is not enough education and understanding about recognizing a CHD and the treatments available, that is already causing issues before getting a doctor involved. Another factor in recovery and mortality is accessibility to hospitals. It was interesting to read about the differences in access to the hospital between the U.S. and India.
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The U.S. performed a series of studies to understand more about who can access a hospital if needed. Some results showed "the correlation between areas of low accessibility of hospitals and areas of poverty."(Sidibe 127). These obstacles mean that the probability of having a hospital within reach is lower for families who live in poverty-stricken or more rural areas in their country. However, "Despite the low degree of accessibility in these poor areas, they tend to have some of the highest utilization rates of hospitals for some diseases, particularly heart-related conditions"(Sidibe 127). The high utilization is critical to acknowledge as CHDs are a leading cause of infant death globally, and part of that is due to a lack of attention towards it in certain areas. Even with these numbers, it is still possible for most a community to reach a hospital in a given emergency. Based on a couple of studies, "the average time between where people live and the quickest available hospital is 11.32 minutes" (Sidibe 128).
In comparison, in India, "Access to health care facilities is significantly urban biased. So people living in the rural areas face the additional handicap of such a situation, and they form a disproportionately larger share of the unhealthy population" (Barik 2). The main difference between the U.S. and India is that there is minimal effort to pay more attention to those areas or even heart-related conditions. Even when a rural community can access a hospital, "ruralites make nearly 86% of all medical visit in India with the majority still traveling more than 100 km to avail health care facility of which 70-80% is born out of pocket landing them in poverty" (Singh 2). These differences in the access or struggle it takes to access a hospital can be a leading factor in why the countries' mortality rates vary as any condition, or CHD requires attention, awareness, and access to ensure the patient lives longer.