The most precious thing we can give one another is “care”. It is a value that is universal and this World First Aid Day we are proud to call ourselves caregivers to hundreds and thousands of people seeking care and helping them heal.

Care is what unites us as human beings. It could be caring for our fellow citizens, care for the environment, care for our friends and family, care while interacting and ensuring we don’t hurt other people’s feelings etc. When we care, we automatically make everything better. The Regency Medical Centre  situated in Dar Es Salaam takes pride in providing the best healthcare Tanzania has to offer.

World First Aid Day 

The term “first aid” refers to the assistance given to a person suffering a sudden injury or illness. First aid aims to save lives and mitigate the pain or damage caused by injury or illness. The significance of First Aid is that it can be administered by anyone provided the person is trained efficiently. This is why, very early on, school children are taught how to make a first aid box. They are taught about what and how every component such as bandages, band-aids, disinfectant etc., in the first aid box works to mitigate damage caused by injury and save lives. 

It is said that even in countries with the most responsive emergency services it can take up to ten minutes for an ambulance to arrive at the scene and help the patient or victim. These ten minutes are sometimes extremely crucial and even with the best emergency treatment, people can lose their lives. Therefore, quick and effective first aid is critical in saving lives till help arrives and sometimes first aid may be all that a person needs to survive.

Every year, the second Saturday of September marks World First Aid Day. The day was founded by The International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) and Red Crescent Societies in the year 2000. Its main purpose was to raise awareness on the importance of first aid and how crucial it is to save lives. Each year millions of people die and many of these deaths are unnecessary. 

With the frequency of natural disasters, wars, social unrest etc. on the rise, human lives are at risk today more than ever. This calls for a global joint effort on First Aid in humanitarian crises. 

 

“Addressing Exclusion Through First Aid” — The theme for World First Aid Day 2019

 

According to Article 25 of the United Nations’ 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

“Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services.“

Unfortunately, the current reality is very different. In fact, millions of persons lack access even to basic first aid. This gap between access to first aid and the persons that need it the most is what World First Aid Day 2019 seeks to focus on. 

The observance of the theme including first aid and excluded people highlights the importance of teaching, training, learning and knowledge sharing of First Aid care to benefit excluded people. According to the IFRC’s global First Aid reference centre, the IFRC describes excluded people as:

1. People who are out of Sight
2. People who are out of reach
3. People who are left out of the loop
4. People who are out of scope

 

All over the globe, people with these attributes are persons in vulnerable situations such as refugees, prisoners, trafficked persons, and marginalized social groups such as persons and children working on construction sites, living in vulnerable communities like slums, child labourers, persons with disabilities etc. Persons belonging to these groups are more susceptible to disease, injury and very often they are unable to exercise their right to health. That is why including them in the first aid framework is very important. 

 

The IFRC and Red Crescent Societies are committed to bringing people with these attributes into the social mainstream. The IFRC advocates their participation in providing as well as benefiting from first aid and first aid response techniques. Therefore it emphasises including these vulnerable and marginal groups in training for first aid. Above all, their inclusion sends out a larger social message which is that first aid is a humanitarian act and is performed with respect and consideration for diversity without discrimination. First Aid is also an important caregiving technique that must be learned by “those left behind”.

 

RMC stands in observance of World First Aid Day 2019 and its theme Addressing Exclusion through First Aid and reiterates its commitment to providing the best in healthcare for one and all. We support equality and access to healthcare for all our patients.