Your chest tightens, like an elephant is sitting on it. Pain streaks down your arm and you break out in a cold sweat. You feel light-headed and you’re pretty sure you’re having a heart attack. So when do you call an ambulance?
You might think the answer is easy: straight away, right? It’s well known getting the right medical help early when you’re having a heart attack can be a life-or-death d
Our previous research based on a study involving more than 600 patients who presented at a hospital with chest pain, looked at how long they delayed seeking medical help and how long they delayed going to hospital.
We found a median pre-hospital delay time of six hours for Sub-Saharan African migrants. This compared with an overall median pre-hospital delay time of 3.7 hours across the whole group.
Importantly, decision time to seek help takes up to 83 per cent of pre-hospital delay in migrant patients, compared to only 48 per cent for Australian-born patients.
In other words, the delay was caused by the patient’s decision to wait before seeking help (as opposed to, say, traffic problems or an ambulance taking too long to arrive).
The median “decision time” was:
4.5 hours for migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa
4.1 hours for migrants from the Middle East
3.9 hours for migrants from Southeast Asia
3.5 hours for migrants from Southern and Central Asia.
By contrast, the median decision time for Australians was 1.5 hours.
subsequent research has shown certain factors may influence how long a migrant waits to seek help after chest pains first appear. These include things such as:
their ability to speak English
the type of visa they were on
whether or not they have Australian permanent residency.
Non-English speaking migrants are more likely to wait hours before seeking help, while migrants from English-speaking backgrounds sought medical care more quickly.
(SBS NEWS)
