Red Cross Nursing

The only certain thing about our day-to-day life is uncertainty.  What happens when and how cannot be predicted in advance and planned for the same with any amount of certainty.  This is especially true in the case of mishaps, accidents and minor or major health problems.

It is this uncertainty, especially with regard to health related incidents, that calls for knowledge about first aid and knowledge about the same in the form of simple first aid courses for every one.

What do you mean by first aid?

The word “First Aid” refers to the immediate or instant help provided to a person who met with an accident, or has suffered sudden illness such as loss of breath or a cardiac attack while walking on the road or traveling in a bus.  The help, in the case of an accident, might be arresting the flow of blood before taking the victim to the nearby hospital.

The primary aim of First aid is to ensure that there is no threat to the life, or simply, saving the life of the person.  The second aim is to ensure that the condition of the person is stabilized or arrested from further deterioration – something like stopping the flow of blood in the case of an accident.  The third aim is to ensure that the first aid activity helps in promoting the health of the patient.

While it should be the endeavor of people not to be a person getting first aid treatment, it should be our prime responsibility  to extend all possible assistance in the form of first aid when we come across any person needing immediate assistance.

You need not be a medical expert to provide first aid to a person in need of the same.  One thing you should, however, ensure is that the help you do or try to do should not aggravate the situation that is contrary to the goal of first aid.

By learning the importance and basics of first aid through a first aid course, you can be on the right side and help a person in need of emergency.

Training in CPR or certified pulmonary resuscitation contains a number of sub-divisions. One can opt to take any specialized course or all of such courses to be prepared and willing to provide first aid to a person suffering from cardio-related diseases. Anybody can take up a course on CPR, get trained and get a certificate. Even children aged above 8 years and above can be provided with CPR training.

The various sub-types of training in CPR include CPR for adults, CPR for use at the workplace, CPR for infants, CPR for children, CPR that uses automatic external defibrillator, and also something called as Heart Saver CPR.

Though the core idea behind all types of specializations is to save the patient’s life, the mode and approach to the treatment might have some variations. One can decide the area of specialization in which he or she would like to obtain certification. Depending upon the choice of the specialized course, the duration of the course, the content and the fees might change.

If you are working in a factory, then your employer might sponsor you for CPR at workplace or allow you to take up the course, such that you can be of immense use to the workers when an unexpected thing happens or any of the co-workers can be affected with heart related problems. If you are working as a baby-sitter, then CPR for children and infants will be quite useful for you such that you can administer first aid in case of emergency and save an infant’s life.

Depending upon the type of exigency you are mostly likely to experience, you can gain specialized training in CPR apart from the general awareness and certification in CPR.

Where can you get all these types of CPR courses? Without any second thought, you can go to the Red Cross, where all types of training related to CPR are offered. You can also take up online courses for certification on CPR, which provides you the freedom and leisure to learn the course. Certification will be provided when you conduct and demonstrate in a practical session as per the instructions of the online educator.

Awareness of first aid is one thing. Administering first aid in case of emergency to a person is another thing. If you want to really help a person in distress, you should seriously considering allocating some time and a little amount of money to visit the local chapter of Red Cross, inquire about first aid training course, enroll yourself for the course and get a certificate for first aid training.

Learning first aid and getting certificate as a first aid provider will help you in many ways. Because, in a first aid training course, you will not only be taught how first aid should be administered, but also practical sessions and demonstrations in video films will be shown to you, thus preparing you to do the first aid, in case of emergency.

Before providing first aid, the following things need to be followed:

You, as a provider of first aid, should always ensure that the affected person is not unconscious while you do. He or she must be conscious.

Also ensure that you update the person receiving the first aid attention about what you are doing. Ensure that you ask the person what and how he or she feels, where the patient experiences pain and all other things. It is essential that you take the patient into confidence and do all that is needed with his concurrence. Because, you should not do anything, in your enthusiasm to provide help, that might have negative repercussions.

You should carefully examine the area where the injury occurred or where the person experiences pain or trouble. See whether there is any swelling, break, cut, or bruise in the affected area and also ensure that there is no blood flow. Do not show panic or urgency such that you overlook these symptoms. Be confident and ensure that all the precautions have been duly followed before you provide first aid assistance.

You need to act quickly. At the same time, you should ensure that you are doing the correct things in the proper way. This is what you will learn in the first aid training course and a certificate acknowledges your capability to handle the persons in case of emergency.

The increasing usage of Internet and the spread of technology have made it possible to use this medium as a powerful means to educate the masses in a relatively quicker period.

Online training, as it is other wise called, offers the comfort of staying at home, not visiting the specialized centre for classes and training, and also decide the time you want to spend in front of the computer for learning this certification course on first aid.

Where to get online training for first aid?

This might be a dilemma for many people who need to ascertain the genuineness of the website offering the course and the quality and acceptance of that certificate in other places.

All you need to do is just open the browser window in your internet explorer and google the words “online first aid training.” You will get the list of sites and their proficiency in the field can be ascertained from visiting the about page. Voluntary organizations, major hospitals and even Red Cross is also offering online courses to aspiring people, who, being aware of the importance of first aid and unable to allocate separate time for personal classes, can take up the Internet as their source of knowledge on first aid.

Before deciding to opt for online training, you need to make sure that your broadband connectivity is suitable for the transmission of the course in the form of video lessons, practical applications in local hospital setting and also audio classes by the renowned first aid instructors.

Once you can have these basic features in the computer, you can feel at ease to learn this course from home itself. You may need to take up some practical examination, visiting a local hospital and demonstrate the skills you learned in online training courses.

On successful completion of the course, once can be given a Certificate for first aid, which will give the strength and skill to save a person’s life in case of emergency.

It is next to impossible to predict what will happen the next moment in the ordinary course of a person’s life. The situation becomes grim, for example, if either we contract a sudden problem such as a cardiac attack, unfortunately away from the vicinity of any hospital, or we see other person suffering from such an unforeseen event.

It is precisely in these circumstances that the importance of first aid and more specifically emergency first aid can come to a person’s rescue. Things can get out of control in a matter of seconds or minutes and any delay in such a situation might cost a life, which, once lost, cannot be retrieved back.

First aid in general, and emergency first aid, in particular, refers to those trivial but essential activities that need to be done for a person suffering from a health problem, such as sudden stroke attack, before he or she can be taken to the nearest hospital for regular treatment.

A number of voluntary health organizations, apart from hospitals and over health institutions, teach emergency first aid courses on a regular basis to teach and educate the people about the importance of this service, that, if properly utilized, can result in saving millions of lives. You might have heard many instances where the patient breathed his or her last before being taken to the hospital. If that patient were treated with emergency first aid, the probability of saving his or her life would have been more.

Burns, heart attack, stroke, accident, outbreak of violence or some bomb blast may be some of the incidents that require emergency first aid.

The principles of first aid or emergency first aid is following the three P’s in that order – preserving the life of the person; preventing further deterioration in the health of the patient; and paving way for further recovery of the patient.

An ideal example of emergency first aid is CPR or cardiopulmonary resuscitation, which can be administered to a person whose breathing or heartbeat has stopped following a heart attack.