At the heart of the summer of 2024, Géraldine Knie began to feel violent chest pain, accompanied by body paralysis and strong palpitations. Nothing reassuring. But in the middle of the season, the manager of the Knie circus does not find a minute to consult. She postpones, activates, juggles with priorities, until her body, he said to stop and finally decides to consult her doctor. The diagnosis falls: infarction. “When my doctor told me that I had a heart attack, it was a big shock for me,” she told “Blick”.
“I am so grateful that everything has ended well, even if convalescence still takes time,” she says. In December, she underwent surgery. Her husband and two children, Chanel Marie and Mayy Junior, watched her night and day, sleeping in the hospital. “Thank goodness, my heart is recovered, I feel like a new person. If you feel that something is wrong with you, please take a medical exam. This is important, ”she concludes. A traumatic experience, but revealing a much deeper evil.
Because beyond his personal case, the testimony of Géraldine Knie raises a health problem. The figures are there: in Switzerland, women die more often than men from a heart attack, can be read in 20 minutes which is based on a study relayed by the “Nzz Am Sonntag”. 29 % of deceased women are following this cardiovascular disease, compared to 26 % in men. A gap all the more worrying as hospitalizations mainly concern male patients.
This paradox is partly explained by an ignorance of the symptoms specific to women. They are more diffuse, less typical, and therefore too often ignored, even by health professionals. The study in question thus reveals that “61 % of women who consider themselves at risk say they have not been properly informed by their doctor”. A figure that falls 48 % among men.
