Dist hospitals lack life-saving machine for sudden cardiac arrest

The Ropar district hospitals lack electrical defibrillator facility, both in private and government sectors, which can save the life of people in case of a sudden cardiac arrest.

Hundreds of people are losing their lives in the district every year as they do not get emergency treatment through electrical defibrillators or cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

The nearest emergency treatment is at the district headquarters or in Mohali district.

According to Civil Surgeon Ropar, Dr Balwinder Kaur, in the government sector, there are just four electrical defibrillators in the district — three in the Ropar Civil Hospital and one in Anandpur Sahib.

Sources said in the private sector also, defibrillators are available just in a couple of hospitals. In the sub-divisions of Nangal and Chamkaur Sahib, electrical defibrillators are not available, both in the private and government sector.

An electrical defibrillator is a device that provides electric shock to heart to allow it to get out of a potentially fatal abnormal heart rhythm. According to a senior surgeon in Ropar, Dr RS Parmar, for many people who suffer sudden cardiac arrest, the chances of survival are as low as 1 to 2 per cent in case they are not given the CPR or treatment through electrical defibrillators.

Dr Bhanu Parmar, a leading surgeon in Ropar, said according to Lancet, a renowned international journal, about 5 to 6 lakh people die every year in India due to sudden cardiac arrest (SCA). It is a condition in which a person suddenly collapses due to a sudden dangerous rhythm disturbance in the heart. The time for intervention is barely a few minutes and in more than 90% of the cases, sudden cardiac arrest leads to sudden cardiac death. They hardly have any time to reach the hospital and unless we intervene immediately, there is no hope of survival. If common people know the life-saving skill of the CPR, they can get precious time till an ambulance or emergency response team arrives at the scene and the patient can be transported to a hospital, he said.

He further said that in India due to the lack of awareness, policies and fear of legal issues the bystanders are not able to respond appropriately in such cardiac situations. Hence the survival rates after sudden cardiac arrest in India are as low as 1-2%. We need to emulate the West, where the bystander CPR is common, which means the common people, who are highly aware and trained to provide CPR, are present at most of the times at public places during critical emergencies. They also have public access to automated external defibrillator (AED) which delivers an emergency shock to the chest in a bid to revive the victim of sudden cardiac arrest. Due to all these measures, it has been shown that the survival rate has gone up by as high as 60-70% is such countries, he said.