The need for public first-aid training as violence continues

Ibtissam Mashhadanny regrets not knowing how to provide first-aid treatment. With just a basic understanding of resuscitation techniques, the 38-year-old bank worker might have saved her friend’s life when she was a victim of an explosion in their Baghdad neighbourhood several weeks ago.

“If I’d known how to get her to breathe again, my friend would be with me today,” said Mashhadanny. “When they brought her to the emergency hospital, they told me that she had been left for too long without oxygen.”

Despite a horrendous deterioration of security, the government has done little to promote first-aid and emergency awareness among the citizenry. “We Iraqis never receive first-aid lessons – not in school or at our jobs,” said Mashhadanny. “For this reason, we’re not prepared for saving lives.”

On a daily basis, ordinary Iraqis are the victims of car bombs, suicide attacks and crossfire between insurgents and local military forces. As a result, emergency services must remain on alert around the clock. But rescue workers complain they suffer from a lack of the human and material resources necessary to carry out frequent emergency procedures.

“If the population learned how to proceed in emergency situations, it would make our work easier,” said Faik Abbas, of the Baghdad fire brigade. “It would give us a better chance of saving the lives of innocent people. Instead, hundreds of people can watch a victim dying without lifting a finger, because they don’t know what to do.”

Addressing the issue

According to Abbas, there are no government agencies involved in the dissemination of first-aid information and only very few local NGOs doing it. NGOs, however, tend to focus attention on volunteers and not the general population. “The best way to teach people is by introducing it as a discipline in schools and universities,” said Dr Muhammad Jarnoon, a teacher at Baghdad University’s medical faculty. “This way, children will teach their parents about first aid.”

The Iraqi Aid Association (IAA) is one of the few NGOs trying to bring awareness of the matter to the wider population. The IAA, which has already trained 55 volunteers, goes to areas where explosions are common and teaches local people how to perform first-aid procedures. “It’s interesting to see how fast they learn, especially the young,” said IAA spokesman Ahmed Barak.

While the Iraqi Red Crescent Society is also trying to play a role in raising first-aid awareness, the organisation says much more investment is needed. The government, however, counters that – with huge security problems throughout the country – such projects are difficult to develop extensively.

Nevertheless, the ministries of health, education and the interior are taking steps towards introducing first-aid to primary- and secondary-school curricula. “We know that first-aid is essential in a country where security is deeply compromised,” said education ministry official Sharkis Yehia. “But we also need time to introduce it to the school system.”

Aid agency volunteers, meanwhile, are running low on patience, saying that, for every year that the population is unaware of basic first-aid procedures, thousands will die unnecessarily.

A lack of supplies and personnel

In addition to the urgent need for first aid training, emergency services also are struggling to cope with shortages of both personnel and essential medical supplies while dealing with huge numbers of daily casualties. “Sometimes, you have to choose who you attend to because so many patients come in at the same time after an explosion,” said Dr Ahmed Abdel-Kader of Baghdad’s Yarmouk Emergency Hospital. “A continuous lack of emergency supplies and the small number of professional doctors cause a delay in such circumstances, and people have died as a result.”

According to the health ministry, officials have been monitoring the requirements of hospitals countrywide and are planning to establish a special commission to investigate reported deficiencies. In the meantime, emergency service workers are doing their best under trying circumstances, often attending to patients without protective gloves or masks.

While a number of Iraqi governorates, including Baghdad, recently received a batch of new ambulances, health workers say these are not enough. “We need more ambulances to meet the country’s needs, especially in the capital,” said senior health ministry official Ahmed Salahdinne. “But we also have a lack of professionals working in emergency departments, because most of them have fled the country, afraid of the continuous killings.”

AS/AR/AM