CPR could have saved lives

​Hyderabad: By now we have listened to enough of demonetisation-related instances in which scores of people across the country have been reported dead after suffering sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) while standing in long queues outside banks and ATMs to exchange scrapped currency notes.

The death of any person is always a tragedy whether it occurred as a result of demonetisation or any other cause. What matters here is whether the nation where an approximate 4,280 out of every one lakh people die per year due to SCA ever prepared to tackle the malady effectively.

“There is no point in antagonising demonetisation, heart stroke could have happened to anyone and anywhere outside medical settings.

All that we needed was a target-oriented mechanism to create awareness among public about the Hands-Only Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR), a potentially lifesaving technique when someone suddenly collapses due to cardiac emergencies,” Cardiologist Dr Ramaka Srinivas of Hanamkonda told The Hans India.

There are umpteen numbers of cases in which people collapsing due to SCA in full public view and minutes later were declared brought dead by the doctors at the hospitals, he said, advocating the need for creating awareness about cardiovascular emergencies to lay public besides making Automated External Defibrillators (AED) devices available in public places like bus stations, railway stations, malls etc.

This apart there is a need for providing trained paramedics with the ambulance services and improving the emergency cardiac care in all hospitals. It was very sad that none of the victims who collapsed and died while standing in queues near banks and ATMS had received CPR, he said.

Stating that the response time of emergency medical services such as ambulances is bizarre in the country compared to the international standards of 6 minutes, he said that even a bystander could save the life of a person through a chain of survival measures that include immediate recognition of cardiac arrest and activation of the emergency response system, followed by early CPR, rapid defibrillation and integrated Post-cardiac arrest care.

Dr Srinivas whose social outlook has been instrumental in conducting several awareness programmes that included training of Cardio- Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) procedure to thousands of lay public. It may be noted here that Dr Srinivas had been campaigning for the cause for the last seven years.

The largest CPR Training Session in which he created awareness to 4,000 people in Warangal on December 12, 2012 had earned him a place in the Limca Book of Records. Dr Srinivas Ramaka, a cardiologist, demonstrates how to perform Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) to save life of a person suffering from cardiovascular emergencies on a manikin.