Hyderabad: Civic staff, cops set to get CPR training

Hyderabad: In wake of many people losing their lives due to heart attacks, the State government will be taking up CPR training for the staff of Panchayat Raj, Municipal and Police departments and also place 1,200 AED (automatic external defibrillator) devices in public places which will help people in restoring their heart beat while they face a stroke.

This was announced by state Health Minister T Harish Rao, who along with the Municipal Administration Minister KT Rama Rao and Labour Minister Ch Malla Reddy inaugurated the cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training at GVK EMRI on Wednesday. Harish Rao revealed that this thought came from KTR when his father-in-law died of a cardiac arrest. The people around him could not do anything and they waited until the ambulance came and by that time he lost his life. He said that the sudden cardiac arrest was not related to any particular age and even young ones were also dying due to heart stokes. With CPR at least five out of ten deaths can be reduced. Rao revealed that in Telangana 24,000 people die due to cardiac arrest every year.

Harish Rao said that this programme has been started in Hyderabad and would be expanded in various other districts with the involvement of staff from Panchayat Raj, Municipal Administration and Police departments. Apart from this, the apartment security personnel, presidents and office bearers of residential societies, staff in the commercial establishment would also be trained. The personnel getting trained at EMRI would be the master trainers who would be training others in various districts.

KTR said that in foreign countries there is a culture of having a master check-up once in a year but in India there is no such system. People involve in self-medication, go for paracetamol tablets in case of fever. The problem has been the change in lifestyle. India is called the diabetic capital of the world and sudden cardiac arrest is one of the non-communicable diseases.

Recalling how an 19-year-old in Nirmal died of stroke, Rao said that there were two reasons for this, lifestyle changes and no awareness onto what needs to be done in case of stroke. CPR should be taught to the personnel in gyms as even the trainers don't have any idea what to do when a person gets a stroke. "My father-in-law got a stroke but people around him did not know what to do," said Rao. If five lives are saved five families can be rescued with CPR, he added.