This is what most of us would do in a medical emergency situation—panic, pray or pass out. But for a patient in a medical crisis, the first few minutes could be the game changer if a trained first responder takes charge of the situation.
Take a second and think about this: how would you respond if your child unexpectedly choked on a piece of food or worse, a person suddenly faints in your office, or even worse, a person suffers a stroke or someone is bitten by a snake in a forest safari? Without appropriate medical and scientific knowledge on how to respond to such grave emergencies, you are of no help.
However, you don’t have to feel completely helpless as even a non-healthcare personnel can take charge and play proxy doctor before the real paramedics arrive. Vikas Tripathi, Assistant Vice-President, VIVO Healthcare, one of the few Emergency Medical Training companies in the country, tells us how to deal with some worst case scenarios. He also emphasises that people should become aware of such trainings and invest in them to help those in need at home, office or the street.
The statistics are alarming. In India, 7.5 lakh people in die due to sudden cardiac arrest every year. Our country also has a dubious distinction of seeing maximum road accidents in the world. According to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, there were around 4.98 lakh road accidents in 2011 that killed 1.42 lakh people and injured more than five lakh people, many of whom were disabled for life.
“Imagine how many lives can be saved if people are trained in dealing with emergency situations swiftly and accurately. First responders can minimise damage, stop bleeding and provide first aid. It is high time that the concept of First Responder Training becomes popular in India,” says Tripathi.
Because these training are provided specially for non-healthcare professionals, just about anybody can undergo it. “At present, India faces a huge lack of allied health professionals. According to a recent study carried out by Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), India is short of 64 lakh allied health professionals. Approximately 40 per cent of existing healthcare workforce is not adequately trained due to lack of quality training institutes and organised infrastructure. All this shows that an additional nine million paramedics are needed over the next 10 years to meet the projected demand,” he says.
Filling in the gap in the country’s healthcare system by addressing the need for a more efficient emergency response and trained paramedics is one of the plausible long-term solutions in saving lives. So the next time you need to deal with a ‘situation,’ know you could manage the crisis very well.
