During heart attacks, effective management of ‘Golden Hour’ is important to save the lives of patients. Hence, the Telangana State Health Department has come up with a proposal to equip security guards employed in housing apartments on administering cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) if anyone in the complex suffers a heart attack. CPR is a lifesaving technique applied to revive a person whose heartbeat or breathing had stopped. This is supposed to be the first response during the Golden Hour of heart attack.
According to the Health department, STEMI (ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction) is a serious type of heart attack. It is the most common cause of mortality in Telangana, causing 17 per cent deaths. STEMI leads to high morbidity and mortality unless diagnosed and treated promptly in the first hour, called the ‘Golden Hour.’
Health Minister T Harish Rao said, “We are planning to roll out the training programme for the security personnel at the housing apartments on how to administer CPR to save lives.” This will be the first layer. Then the patient would be shifted to the nearest tertiary care hospital, area hospital or community health care centre which has a cath lab and cardiologist facilities.Harish Rao said that under this model, these hospitals or centres will act as the HUB. These HUBs will be attached to a district hospital, area hospital, and Community Health Centre (CHC) which will be equipped with artificial intelligence-based Tele-ECG Machines.
These machines will transmit the ECGs readings promptly to the physicians as well as hub cardiologists and will give the diagnosis of STEMI within a turnaround time of (TAT) of less than three minutes. Once the heart attack is diagnosed, a clot buster drug (thrombolytic agent) would be administered under the guidance of the concerned hub cardiologist to stabilise the patient and angiogram will be done. The minister said that Telangana is the first state to use injection Tenecteplase as a sole thrombolytic agent which costs around Rs 45,000 per vile. But the government will give it free of cost in the Golden Hour irrespective of the financial status of the patients.
