The Vice President of India, M. Venkaiah Naidu has said that every citizen of the country must be made capable of saving others in times of life-threatening distress. Addressing a gathering at Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) Camp, being organized at Swarna Bharat Trust, in Vijayawada, he urged the teaching community to inculcate the values of care, empathy and compassion among students from schooling to make them responsible citizenry.Saying that 4280 per 1,00,000 population in India suffers it in comparison to 60-151 per 1,00,000 in the USA, the Vice President stressed the need to bring in a law to make CPR training compulsory in schools so that one can help the fellow human being in case of a sudden cardiac arrest.Shri Naidu called upon companies and institutions in both public and private sector provide first response training to their employees such as CPR in the advent of cardiac arrest and first aid in case of accidents. He opined that chance of survival of the distressed would increase manifold if they were provided CPR or first aid as every minute counts in resuscitation of such victims.
The Vice President expressed concern over the rise in the number of heart diseases and said that they have become a silent epidemic and major killer in our country. He further said that modern lifestyle, lack of physical activity, genetic predisposition, metabolic syndrome and unhealthy dietary habits were making Indians to be more prone to heart disease, especially the young ones.Shri Naidu appreciated the efforts of the Indian Resuscitation Council (IRC), an initiative of Indian Society of Anesthesiologists, who have developed simple guidelines for primary delivery of CPR called Compression-only-Life Support (COLS) outside a hospital setting. He also complimented all the organizations including the Telugu Association of North America (TANA) and American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI) for sponsorship and donating manikins for the training.On the occasion, the Vice President also launched the Mobile Hospital Services of the GSL, Rajahmundry–GSL Hospital on Wheels. These services would bring healthcare to the door steps of rural population living in Godavari Districts of Andhra Pradesh, he added.Dr S. Chakra Rao, Chairman, Indian Resuscitation Council, representatives of GSL Hospital, doctors and students who received training at Swarna Bharat Trust were present at the venue.