10 Feb ; The Department of Pediatrics (PGIMER) along with NSS volunteers of National Institute of Nursing Education (NINE) organized a unique workshop at Advanced Pediatric Center for nearly 200 students of St John’s High School. This is an initiative to teach First aid and Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) training at young ages in schools. These types of initiatives empower the children to become responsible citizens and further improve bystander initiated first aid and rescue efforts.
Basic Life Support is the first step in the Chain of Survival is to make early contact with medical help. After that, the steps include checking airways, breathing and performing chest compressions and rescue breaths. Students took lot of initiative in learning the basic skills and they were also informed of the various existing Tele–helplines such as Childline (1098) and Traffic Help Line (1073). Nursing Students taught the students various ways to apply bandages and slings.
Prof Sunit Singhi , Head Department of Paediatrics and Chief of the Emergency & Intensive care had been one of the pioneers to bring the Advanced Life support to India and he further feels that teaching Basic Life support skills to school students will go a long way in empowering the community . He felt that the division of Health education in his department can assist in this venture to raise the community awareness of these skills .