Team Herald
PANJIM: Stating that an increase in incidence of cardiac arrest among healthy and young people could be linked to COVID pandemic, Indian Medical Association-Goa Branch on Wednesday said that it will provide hands-on training to people from different walks of life, including students in ‘Compression-Only Life Support (COLS)’ technique.
This technique is a pre-hospital care which can be given by bystanders to a person who suffers cardiac arrest.
“Of late, we are seeing an escalation in the occurrence of sudden deaths seemingly in healthy persons due to cardiac arrest and almost 80 per cent of these cases occur in public places. By the time the expert help is reached, it may be too late. Now the person in the immediate vicinity bystander plays a vital role in deciding the survival of the victim. Time is just about three to four minutes after the heart stops functioning,” Secretary of IMA Goa State Dr Sandeep Naik said.
“COLS technique will equip every bystander to respond quickly and effectively to cardiac arrest. We use powerpoint presentations, videos and mannequins to demonstrate and supervise the hands-on training for anyone who approaches us be it housing society, college, school and social organisation. We request people to contact any of our doctors and we will come to you to provide training,” he added.
COLS technique is slightly different from CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation).
IMA Goa State president Dr Mohan Dhumaskar informed that the association will be organising a workshop on disaster management and medical management of Chemical emergencies on March 11 at Sanskruti Bhavan.
“Recent disasters have brought to our notice the need to have specialized training in pre-hospital care, especially in case of chemical-related disasters, as well as preparedness of hospitals with regards to such events,” Dr Dhumaskar said.
Dr Vallabh Dhaimodker, a prominent member of IMA said that with development that has taken place chemical disasters and techno industrial disasters are on rise and that people are exposed and forced to face the disaster.
“The whole idea is to sensitise the people and make them aware what the disaster is because it comes unwarranted. Awareness, preparedness and how to act when there is a disaster,” he said.
