Abdus Salam Khan, MD FACP – September, 2015
The basic task of emergency physicians and nurses is to prioritize people who come to emergency department for their level of illness and provide them with care they require. It includes providing them with basic and advanced life support. In the emergency department due to the availability of all necessary tools basic life support is not the only option but outside emergency department it is the only tool that is often available for the majority of people when their lives are in danger.
We have seen the extensive utilization of basic life support in the western world and we know that providing this tool in the hands of general public is the smart thing to do. It gives the patients a chance to fight with their illness till more equipped help arrives. So what is this tool? Basic life support is the ability to identify a patient in distress and provide them with CPR. CPR, or cardio pulmonary resuscitation is actually to provide support to heart or lungs to sustain life. It is a skill taught to all individuals regardless of their background. It is designed for all willing individuals and is not difficult to learn. We started teaching all our hospital employees this skill and have trained more than three thousand individuals.
The whole course takes about 2-3 hours as we teach them some basic rules. The most important of them is safety. This is one of the most powerful concepts and should always be kept in mind, all the time. No matter the task, we should always make sure we are safe. Are we safe to enter the situation, are we safe to leave the situation and so on and so forth.
After this the most important aspect of BLS is good quality of CPR. Since BLS is essentially providing CPR, the quality of CPR should be good or the whole procedure is worthless. We teach people the determinants of good quality CPR in a form easy to understand. The whole class then enters practicing stage and we provide 3 part learning which ends in hands on skill provision. It is a must for the people to do the CPR themselves so fear of compression goes away.
We remind people of the concept of CPR and tell them to help patient fight with the illness and to give their patient a fair chance to survive. Our experience with our students and employees has taught us that most people are willing to learn and also are willing to help someone in need.
I urge our readers to take some time and learn this skill. This way we are equipped to provide life support. The developed nations have added defibrillators in different areas of the community to provide timely shocks if needed. Hopefully we will also move in that direction soon. Till then we should equip our nation with the tool of CPR.
I can be reached at erdoc@shifa.com.pk.