An Emergency Nurse at the International Maritime Hospital (IMaH), Ms Juliana Owusu Dwamena, has urged institutions to train their staff in basic life support skills.
She described basic life support skills as the immediate cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) given to a person who had collapsed, to help them stay alive before taking them to the hospital.
She said anybody could get a cardiac attack anywhere, and the first five minutes after a collapse without CPR could lead to death.
“That is why it is important for institutions to employ the services of health personnel to train their staff on basic life support skills, such as heart compression and mouth-to-mouth exhalation, to prevent such unforeseen incidents,” she said.
Ms Dwamena was speaking at the weekly “Your Health: Our Collective Responsibility, “a bi-weekly public health advocacy platform initiated by the Ghana News Agency’s Tema Regional Office, to promote communication on health-related topics and the propagation of health information to influence personal health choices.
She said mostly due to lack of knowledge about basic life support, people were unable to offer any help when they encountered people with cardiac arrest, leading to records of death before they could be transported to the hospital.
She urged policymakers to inculcate basic life support skills into educational studies including that of teachers training institutions for better impact.
She also advised against the public pouring water on people when they collapse because the person could inhale the droplets, which could cause death.
Ms Dwamena explained that “When we pour water on a collapsed person, we can accidentally fill the lungs with water, which can block the oxygen supply the person needs to survive.”
She advised that the person should be put on a bare floor or hard surface and get all tight clothes loosened for better air circulation, while the pulse and heartbeats were critically examined and monitored.
“Then pause and give mouth-to-mouth exhalation using a clean cloth or handkerchief as a barrier while shouting for help or calling the ambulance until the person is revived,” she added.
Mr Samuel Adu Ntiamoah, who is also an emergency nurse, added that institutions could come together to acquire equipment for basic life support, such as an Automated External Defibrillator (AED), a well-equipped ambulance, and health personnel, to enhance the health and safety of their workers.
He noted that “Institutions that were closer in geographical location could come together and get well-equipped ambulances that can help transport a person from the institution to the hospital to seek medical care.”
Mr Ntiamoah also advised institutions to align themselves with a particular hospital, to derive the right history of their workers’ health for effective tracing of data of their workers to enable them to provide them with swift assistance in times of crisis.
GNA