Asthma Awareness Week 2014

Asthma Awareness Week 2014 is from 13-19 October with Balloon Day on Friday 17 October

PRESS RELEASE

13 October 2014

What is 52? - At least one person dies every week from asthma

Neville Coffey’s family remembers his asthma starting after he ripped up some carpet when he was about 40. He had mild asthma and his daughter cannot remember him ever having an asthma attack and he was never hospitalised for asthma. What the family didn’t know was that asthma could, and would, kill him.

At least one person a week dies from asthma with 69 deaths in 2011 (the latest figures available). Sadly Neville was one of these.

“People are surprised to learn that asthma can kill – many people regard asthma as a mild disease that causes the odd episode of wheezy breathing,” says Dr Kyle Perrin, Medical Director at the Asthma Foundation. Asthma was also responsible for 7,400 hospital admissions in 2013.

“Dad liked walking, he didn’t smoke and was only a social drinker. He had just passed a work medical two weeks before and was on holiday- this is why it was such a shock when he suddenly had an asthma attack and died,” said his daughter Suzanne.

While Neville visited his doctor he wasn’t very good at communicating with him and he never wanted to be a burden. Like many New Zealanders, he didn’t want anyone making a fuss.

This all came to a head one sunny afternoon. Neville had just been out to a lunch with a Father’s Day voucher. He was washing his car – a job he enjoyed doing. Next thing, he came in and said to his wife Shirley that he couldn’t breathe. She yelled for Suzanne, who lives next door, for help. When Suzanne went in to see her father he was sitting on the bed trying to take his inhaler; his face was grey and his lips were blue. When Suzanne shoved her hand on his back to give him his inhaler he collapsed. Suzanne immediately started CPR. The ambulance arrived, got him breathing again and took him to hospital. Sadly, Neville died soon after he arrived.

“I remember the doctors saying he had a heart attack; they didn’t believe us when we told them he had an asthma attack,” said Suzanne. Tests showed it was asthma - the doctors were shocked as Neville had never spent a night in hospital and had no history of having bad asthma.

Dr Perrin says, “We are asking New Zealanders with asthma to make sure they keep using their medication as prescribed and keep their asthma under control at all times. Don't just wait until your asthma is out of control to do something about it. We recommend getting an asthma management plan completed with a health professional. The plan is designed to help manage your asthma and recognise when it is deteriorating before it becomes an emergency.”

“At least one death per week every year from asthma is too many. The Asthma Foundation is focussing on prevention. To support this we will continue to fund research into treatments and educating on best practice,” said Angela Francis, chief executive of the Asthma Foundation.

For Suzanne’s family it is too late. ““I never thought that asthma killed people. I feel a bit naïve now as I had asthma for a long time and I lived with people who had it but I just never felt that someone could die from an asthma attack. And I didn’t know it could happen so fast,” said Suzanne.

Suzanne is gutted that her father didn’t get to retire – “I want other people to learn from this, to know that it can kill, to know that it can happen so fast. I want to encourage people to listen to your doctor, to take their medication and have an asthma management plan.

Notes for editors

• Over 500,000 New Zealanders have asthma

• One in seven children (107,000) and one in nine adults (389,000) have asthma

• In 2013 asthma was responsible for 7,400 hospitalisations

• People still die from asthma, with 69 deaths in 2011

• In the five years between 2006 and 2011:

• Asthma deaths were six times higher for Pacific Peoples and five times higher for Maori compared to NZ European

• People in the most deprived areas were three times more likely to die of asthma than people in the least deprived areas

• Children living in the most deprived areas were more likely to have asthma (15%) than children living in the least deprived areas (10%)

• Maori have a higher prevalence of asthma compared to non-Maori children, Maori children tend to have more severe symptoms, require hospitalisation for asthma almost three times as often, and require more time off school because of asthma

• $800,000,000 is the conservative estimate of the annual economic burden of asthma

• Asthma affects approximately 235 million people worldwide and the prevalence is rising

• Asthma causes an estimated 250,000 deaths worldwide annually

About the Asthma Foundation

The Asthma Foundation is New Zealand’s sector authority on asthma and other respiratory illnesses. We advocate to government and raise awareness of respiratory illnesses, fund research for better treatments and educate on best practice. We provide resources on our website and support our affiliated asthma societies and trusts in providing education, support and advice. For more information, visit the Asthma Foundation’s website www.asthmafoundation.org.nz.

ENDS

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