Chandigarh
16 February 2019
DIVYA AZAD
Employees from Consulate General of Canada in Chandigarh attended a special Basic Life Support (BLS) and First Aid training session organized by the team of Fortis Hospital Mohali in association with NGO ‘Avoid Accident’.
Every year, over a lakh lives are lost in road accidents in India. Of these, two-wheelers and trucks reportedly account for close to 40% of the fatalities. Keeping in mind the need for increasing road safety, Fortis Hospital Mohali had launched ‘Suraksha’, a campaign for first responders at crash sites, last year. Under the campaign, over 4,000 policemen from Chandigarh & Punjab have been trained in Basic Life Support (BLS) skills at Fortis Mohali.
Dr Arun Kumar, Senior Consultant – Critical Care and an ACLS-certified instructor along with Dr. Vineeta Tewari, Department of Critical Care (Medicine Intensive Care Unit) who conducted the session with his team, said, “Our session equips individuals to assist anybody in need of immediate assistance in case of an accident. Should they ever arrive upon an accident site, they will be better able to attend to the patient and probably even save his/her life.”
Hon’ble Consul General of Canada at Consulate General of Canada in Chandigarh, Mia Yen, was all praise for the session and also underwent training in hands-only Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation.
Mr Harpreet Singh of ‘Avoid Accident’ said, “We are a non-government and not for profit organization that is continuously working for road safety concerns and injury prevention and control. We are associate members of Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety, The International Road Assessment Programme (iRAP), Road Traffic Injuries Research Network (RTIRN), International Federation of Pedestrians , YOURS and European Road Safety Charter along with several other organizations including United Nations Global Compact and WHO.”
He added, “One of our major drives relate to rescuing road accident victims in Golden Hour for which we are creating awareness to build the confidence of common people to come forward to help them. To continue this drive, we requested Fortis Hospital Mohali to impart valuable training to enable citizens to provide immediate assistance and help to road accident victims on the spot of accident.”
What is CPR?: Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is an emergency procedure for manually preserving brain function until further measures to restore spontaneous blood circulation and breathing in a person who is in cardiac arrest. It is indicated in those who are unresponsive with no breathing or abnormal breathing, for example, agonal respirations. As per the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation guidelines, CPR involves chest compressions at least 5 cm (2 in) deep and at a rate of at least 100 per minute to pump blood through the heart and thus the body. Current recommendations place emphasis on high-quality chest compressions over artificial respiration; a simplified CPR method involving chest compressions only is recommended for untrained rescuers. The objective of CPR is to delay tissue death and to extend the brief window of opportunity for a successful resuscitation without permanent brain damage. A WHO study shows that less than 1% of the people in India are aware about CPR. As many as 7.5 lakh people die of sudden cardiac arrest in the country every year. Since the attack happens mostly outside the hospital and the victims are seldom given CPR before they are taken to the hospital, death becomes a certainty in such cases.
