A new report by Access Economics has revealed that this year 80,000 Australians can expect to be treated in hospital for heart attacks or chest pain - at a cost to the economy of $18 billion and 10,000 people will die from a heart attack.
The study commissioned by pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly into the economic costs of Heart Attack and Chest Pain (Acute Coronary Syndrome-ACS) in Australia for 2009, has found a single heart attack costs the nation $280,000 and the costs of chronic chest pain, lost productivity and treatment amounts to $74,000.
Experts say this is an economic burden which could be avoided and more needs to be done to prevent heart attacks and getting sufferers to hospital faster to increase their chances of survival.
Cardiologist Professor Derek Chew from the Heart Foundation, who was a member of the research panel, says more efforts must be made to a promote healthy lifestyle, improving diets and encouraging people to exercise regularly, controlling cholesterol and stopping smoking - he says these measures could reduce the number by as much as 90%.
The $18 billion includes a plethora of costs, from hospital bills through to lost productivity resulting from 90,000 new cases of Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS) - according to the research there will be an estimated 87,500 ACS events in 2009 - of which approximately 55,000 will be heart attacks and 32,500 chest pain events and most of these (61%) will occur in men.
The report says lost productivity will amount to $3.8 billion, of which $2.3 billion will be the total loss of earnings by ACS patients while they are out of the workforce, and says with an the nation's ageing population, the numbers of ACS and the associated costs will increase further.