PNO – Elementary and middle school students should be taught first aid soon. Doing this well will contribute to reducing the burden on society, the health system and the economy as a whole.
Recently, many people have been prosecuted for the act of “failing to help people in a life-threatening situation”. However, when seeing people in distress on the road, not everyone has the skills and confidence to assist the victims.
Must learn how to do first aid effectively
Noticing that Soc had a nosebleed, Phinn (8 years old) and Noel (7 years old) calmly divided the work: Noel stood beside to reassure Soc, reminding her to lean forward; Phinn used the tip of her thumb and index finger to gently squeeze the soft flesh at the bridge of Soc’s nose, helping her stop the bleeding.
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Phinn (blue shirt) is very excited when learning first aid from Survival Skills Vietnam. |
Looking at this scene, Mr. Pham Le Tuan Nghia (HCMC) was very surprised, and at the same time knew that the decision for his children to participate in first aid class was right. His children didn’t put stuff like cotton balls in their noses or tilt their heads back in panic like the way he used to do.
After many times hugging his children to the emergency room in panic, Mr. Nghia always thought he had to learn first aid knowledge and skills. He said, when Phinn was about 4 years old and had a seizure after a high fever, he could only pray that the way to the hospital would be shorter. Another time, Squirrel fainted while playing, his lips were purple. Even though Mr. Nghia was a father of 3 children, he was still panicking and didn’t know how to handle it. He ran like crazy to take his son to the emergency room without knowing that he needed to check his airway and heart rate to support his children on the way to the hospital. “If my baby unfortunately stopped breathing or his heart stopped beating at that time, I would very regret about just running to the hospital.”
According to him, when driving on the road, he often witnessed traffic accidents but did not dare to assist the victim because he did not have knowledge of first aid. There was also a time, he saw people on the street getting off the bus to assist the victim but did not know how to give first aid, making the victim’s health condition worse. Mr. Nghia then studied first aid knowledge by himself to know how to handle each specific case. However, the knowledge on the internet was so chaotic that he was bewildered.
When he heard about the class “First aid and survival skills” organized by Survival Skills Vietnam (SSVN, headquarter at 232/6 Vo Thi Sau, District 3, Ho Chi Minh City), he immediately registered to participate. Finding the class useful, he took his family members to learn together. The class is directly taught by Mr. Tony Coffey – a first aid and quick response specialist from the Sydney Rescue Association and the New South Wales State Rescue Academy (Australia).
Many people don’t pay much attention to first aid
Talking to us, Mr. Tony Coffey – Training Director of SSVN – said that when he visited Da Nang city in 2014, he read an article about a 4-year-old girl who died from choking. When the incident happened, the people present did not know what to do but call the child’s parents to come and take the child to the emergency room. But the girl stopped breathing before reaching the hospital.
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A group of visually impaired people from Thailand came to Ho Chi Minh City to participate in “First aid and survival skills” class directly guided by Mr. Tony Coffey |
“I cried when I read that article. I wish similar cases would never happen again. That is the reason why I founded the non-profit organization SSVN and for the past 9 years, every 2-3 months, I fly to Vietnam for 3 weeks to directly teach first aid training.” – Mr. Tony shared.
A long time ago, while he was cooking, he heard a sob behind him, he turned around and saw that his 2-year-old daughter had fallen to the floor, pale, motionless. In his panic, he suddenly remembered that he had seen a program on how to deal with a similar situation on television. Tony followed his memory and quickly took his daughter to the hospital and her life was luckily saved. After the incident, he noticed that around him, many dangerous situations happened to children and adults, but very few people knew how to handle them. He decided to take a first aid course to protect himself and his family.
Ms. Trang Jena Nguyen – Co-founder and Deputy Director of SSVN – said that at the beginning, she and Mr. Tony faced many difficulties in the procedure and people’s awareness of first aid: “We organized free training courses, starting from Da Nang city but people don’t care or learn. There were only 6 participants in the first class and 1 participant in the second class. However, we still continue because we believe that 1 person can spread the knowledge to 4-5 other people”.
After 9 years of establishment and development in Da Nang, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, SSVN has made changes in the community’s awareness when there are SSVN students who organized community supporting models, like the FAS Angle with more than 100 members in Hanoi. However, according to Mr. Tony, most Vietnamese people are very hesitant to give someone first aid because they think that this requires very deep expertise, only nurses and doctors can do it. In addition, they are also afraid of being implicated.
Mr. Tony said, in developed countries, first aid is compulsory training in the school curriculum at the high school level and anyone can do it. First aid is not treatment, not deep intervention, but only support the victims depending on their body conditions before and during hospitalization. According to Mr. Tony, the core of the problem lies in perception. Compulsory training and education programs will help to raise people’s awareness.
“You should teach first aid skills early to elementary and middle school students because this is a survival skill. When being educated on first aid, children will have the right awareness, first of all, to identify risks to prevent and confidently help the community if an incident occurs. Doing this well is to contribute to reducing the burden on society as well as the health system and the economy as a whole. Specifically, people who have an accident, if they receive first aid in time and properly, they will recover faster and shorten their hospital stay”, said Mr. Tony.
Mr. Ekkachai Nasompong – an expert from the Department of Special Education, Ministry of Education of Thailand – said that he and a group of Thai visually impaired people went to Vietnam to attend SSVN’s first aid training class because there is no first aid class in Thailand, especially for the visually impaired.
Diverse first aid courses SSVN is a social enterprise, operating with the goal of “every Vietnamese family has at least one person who knows how to give first aid properly”. From 2014 to now, SSVN has helped more than 83,000 Vietnamese people access first aid training through commercial and non-profit programs. Training contents of SSVN include cardiopulmonary resuscitation skills, first aid skills in cases of stroke, cerebrovascular accident, myocardial infarction, sudden cardiac arrest, foreign body choking, drowning, bleeding, blood loss, burns, cracks, fractures, snakebites, electrical problems, fires, etc. In addition to face-to-face courses, SSVN also provides free training to the community on social networking platforms.Ms Trang Jena Nguyen – Deputy Director of Survival Skills Vietnam |
Place first aid stations in public places When the victim is unconscious, if the victim stops breathing, within 30-180 seconds, brain death, cardiac arrest and death will occur. The first aid course gives us the right awareness, right practices, and importantly, knowing how to do it right in 3 golden minutes to save victim’s life. In Ho Chi Minh City, when someone has an accident, it is difficult for ambulances to reach within 15 minutes due to the narrow roads, traffic jam and the small number of ambulances not widely distributed. Therefore, the expansion of the first aid network will quickly support the victims. In my opinion, training should be promoted and can be combined with placing first-aid stations in public toilets, helping to raise public awareness about first aid, attracting humanitarian funding to support the operation of first aid teams and effectively operate public toilets.Mr. Pham Le Tuan Nghia |
Thu Le