Presenting First Aid to High School Students

In this article, the focus was on not only the lack of access to a medical professional in the school settings but also the lack of first aid training for teachers and staff within the school setting. One of the major points this article touched on was that school-aged children spend most of their time at school and with these teachers (Qureshi, Khalid, Nigah-e-Mumtaz, Assad, Noreen, 2018). Therefore, there are many times that these children could need medical attention, whether it be a basic stomachache, medication administration, or even an injury, but the teacher’s ability to help the child is restricted due to lack of supplies and lack of appropriate training.

This study, conducted in 2017, included 11 primary and secondary schools in both the public and private sector and randomly selected 209 full-time teachers that had at least one year of experience (Qureshi et al.

, 2018). The data was collected through a questionnaire that was broken down into two sections. The first section was demographic data about the teachers, such as age, gender, academic qualifications, and teaching experiences.

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The second section was questions relating to the first aid quality in the schools, including 15 questions regarding previous training the teacher may have had, common medical incidents in schools, and if they had first aid kits, what was in them. (Qureshi et al., 2018).

The study found that while 82.29% of the most commonly reported incidents requiring first-aid treatment were stomachaches, the major conclusion was that none of the schools had any medical personnel or sick bays available for children to visit when first aid was needed (Qureshi et al., 2018). This leaves the students fully dependent on the teachers and staff of the school. However, according to the questionnaire, 64.42% of them had no prior experience handling medical emergencies, and 75.11% have never attended a first aid course due to lack of opportunity, lack of time, or it was not a part of their educational training (Qureshi et al., 2018).

Although most teachers admitted to having no prior first-aid training, for whatever reason, only 45% of them were willing to enroll into any training course for first aid management, and only 8.61% thought that first aid management was essential to their professional life. (Qureshi et al., 2018). This sparked a debate within me because school-age children are most vulnerable to accidents and injuries. Without a properly trained person, the outcome of an emergency situation could change drastically if the child truly needed life-saving treatment right away. While all of the schools did manage to have a first aid box available, most of them were not up to date or were lacking essential supplies needed in an emergency situation (Qureshi et al., 2018).

Overall this study identified that there is a deficit in first aid training and supplies within various schools throughout Karachi, which puts all of the children at risk when first aid is needed and not readily available. Making sure each school has at least one medical personnel is not realistic in this area but making sure that staff is properly trained in first aid and that supplies are readily available when needed could be the difference in life or death for a child one day. This study truly opened my eyes to the fact that not all places have the adequate training or resources available and that the lack of both of those could potentially have catastrophic results in the event of a true emergency.

References

1. Qureshi FM, Khalid N, Nigah-e-Mumtaz S, Assad T, Noreen K. (2018). First aid facilities in the school settings: Are schools able to manage adequately?. Pakistan journal of medical sciences, 34(2), 272-276. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.342.14766