Patna AIIMS

Police officers and doctors are the first respondents to any disaster but when a calamity strikes, hardly any co-ordination is seen between the two.

Patna AIIMS has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the state government according to which the health hub would organise joint training programmes on handling medical emergencies for cops and doctors.

According to the agreement, Patna AIIMS will form a quick medical response team at every primary health centre of the state, which would comprise doctors and paramedical staff, along with police officials of the area. The health hub would start the training programme from August 12 on its premises.

Patna AIIMS director G.K. Singh confirmed the signing of the MoU. “The level of training programme to be conducted by AIIMS under the agreement can be gauged by the fact that Vijaysheel Gautam, the head of the trauma and emergency department of the health hub, who has over 30 years’ of experience of working on emergency services in London, has been selected as one of the experts to impart the training,” said a source.

“The training programme of doctors, paramedical staff and cops on handling medical emergencies assumes significance in the wake of the recent midday meal tragedy in which there was lack of co-ordination between the first respondents of the medical emergency. We are also scared by reports of poisonous substances being found in hand pumps installed at government schools. We want to take measures from our side so that we don’t have to face problems in handling medical emergencies in the future. This MoU is one such initiative,” said Vyasji, the principal secretary, health.

Elaborating on the training programme, Gautam said: “Bringing the patient to the hospital alive would be the main focus of the programme. We would train doctors, paramedical staff and police officials to handle natural and man-made disasters. For example, if a person has suffered a neck injury, we would train them on how to lift the person, the kind of pre-medical care to be provided on the spot and how he/she is to be transported to the hospital safely.”

He added: “Though doctors are well equipped in these technical aspects, police personnel are not aware of these know-how’s while handling mass casualties. We would also train doctors of primary health centres about the co-ordination required to handle mass casualties. It is seen that even doctors get nervous when some mass casualty occurs. When many cases patients start pouring into hospitals, the physicians panic. In that period there should be co-ordination between doctors and the paramedical staff. Our training programme would focus on that.”

The training programme would comprise handling cases of poisoning, fires, earthquakes and other disasters.