OHCA-- A CONTINGENCY TO CONSIDER AND PREPARE FOR
Crowded road with flustered hues and cries of people forced you to inquire what the matter is about. Upon knowing, it was an elderly man lying unconscious on the ground, before that he was just a regular man walking on the street when suddenly he felt chest pain and fell down. After intersecting the crowd you reached the man to check whether he is responsive by shaking his shoulder and calling him out. There was no heartbeat. It meant that he requires a CPR immediately otherwise he won’t make it till the ambulance arrives. Having attended a workshop on first aid, you were familiar with how to perform a CPR. After a few minutes the ambulance arrived and the man had also regained consciousness. With elation and happiness in your heart because of saving a life, you went your way but one thought remained what if I hadn’t reached there. Will the person be still alive? The person has suffered an out of hospital cardiac arrest.
OHCA is a medical emergency occurring anywhere but in a hospital making it the most vulnerable condition for both the affected person and the people surrounding him due to its sudden onset. Cardiac arrests are a complication of heart disease such as arrhythmias (abnormal rhythm), respiratory illness and trauma. It is characterized by complete and sudden loss of electrical control signals in the heart. In this condition a person is still alive but is unconscious because the heartbeat has stopped and breathing is absent or not normal. It’s not synonymous with heart attack which is caused due to oxygen starvation of the heart muscles due to impaired blood supply. An encounter with such a situation involving your dear ones or any other person collapsing then and there can cause much disquiet and helplessness till the ambulance arrives. The irony in Pakistan is that not much work has been done on a primary level (schools) to educate the masses as to how to deal with such emergency situations, making them a mere spectator of the incident till the ambulance arrives. With developing countries like Pakistan where healthcare system needs massive reforms, leaving the general population devoid of first aid knowledge and management may result in a lot of unforeseeable fatalities that could have been avoided by early intervention.
Maira Salman ,
KMDC, MBBS