In Toulouse, a bus to save the sick hearts of women
Between April 20 and 22, in the Borderouge district of Toulouse, a pink bus took over the Carré de la Maourine. The association Agir pour le cœur des femmes is touring France to raise awareness and prevent cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death among women.
In the Borderouge district of Toulouse, doctors, nurses, organizers are busy around a pink bus in the name of the association “Agir pour le Cœur des Femmes”. Since the arrival of the bus, this Wednesday, April 20, and in a single morning, 80 women have come to be screened for cardiovascular disease.
Kaltoum, 44, is a place of reassurance. “I saw that there was a free assessment and I found it really interesting. So far everything has gone very well, but I haven’t done the exams yet.” After an interview with doctors from the Toulouse University Hospital retracing her social background and her background, she gets on the bus where several exams are waiting for her. A little grimacing, she goes through a little finger prick, then to the blood pressure measurement and the cardiovascular and gynecological check-up with the doctors.
Save 10,000 women in five years
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death among women, far ahead of breast cancer. “There is too little awareness around cardiovascular disease in women. Many patients and caregivers still think it’s a men’s disease, even though it kills 75,000 women a year,” says Claire Mounier. – Véhier, cardiologist at the University Hospital of Lille, who presents herself as the “mother of the bus”. With the entrepreneur Thierry Drilhon, she created the association Agir pour le cœur des femmes to campaign for awareness and prevention of cardiovascular disease. In 2021, the co-founders decided to make the project concrete on the ground and imagine this bus to travel around France for five years. This year: a dozen cities on the program and a stop in Toulouse from April 20 to 22.
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On site, around forty caregivers from the Toulouse University Hospital juggle between appointments, examinations and assessments. The patients arrive in a continuous ballet of curious women, wishing to be reassured, but above all of women who are completely excluded from the health system. “Prevention should be seen as a full-fledged specialization of cardiovascular medicine, but it is still seen as a sub-branch. We are sometimes not considered doctors”, denounces Alessandra Bura-Rivière, head of the medical department. vascular at the University Hospital of Toulouse. A cause for which the association is campaigning, which hopes to save 10,000 women in five years.