Islamabad-Pakistan Islamic Medical Association (PIMA) on Saturday provided life support training to the general public in mosques in three provinces and Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
A statement issued said that under the ‘Lifesavers project’ of PIMA, doctors provided Basic Life Support (BLS) training in as many as 189 mosques in 40 cities of Punjab, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Azad Kashmir on Saturday.
The general public was taught about basic life support that can be provided for any victim of sudden cardiac or respiratory arrest and heart failure, especially where basic facilities are not available to save a precious life. Hundreds of people benefited from these BLS sessions. These training sessions happened at 84 places in Punjab, 42 in Sindh, 37 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and five in Azad Kashmir. PIMA Female Wing also arranged these workshops for women and female students at four places each in Lahore and Islamabad, three each in Karachi, Peshawar and Rawalakot, and one at Faisalabad. PIMA experts told the audience that heart diseases have become the leading cause of death worldwide including Pakistan where according to the World Health Organization data, an alarming increase has been seen in deaths due to heart attacks, heart failures and other cardiac ailments, resulting in a bewildering 46 deaths with every passing hour.
Three years ago, only 12 people were dying due to heart diseases per hour but only in a matter of three years, the figure has alarmingly increased fourfold and now 46 people are dying due to heart attacks in Pakistan. Many lives can be saved with simple Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation. This is a procedure to maintain heart activity, circulation of blood and respiration in an affected person while he is being transferred to a proper hospital facility. Experts trained the general public on practical steps of basic life support in these workshops.