Health Minister Ma. Subramanian on Tuesday launched a scheme to provide life-saving emergency “loading dose”, through over 10,000 primary level health facilities, to persons who experience symptoms of myocardial infarction or heart attack.
Under the scheme, launched at Malumichampatti village in Coimbatore district, the government will make life-saving cardiac drugs available at 8,713 health sub-centres (HSCs) and 2,200 primary health centres (PHCs) and urban primary health centres (UPHCs) across Tamil Nadu at a cost of ₹3.37 crore, the Minister said.
“People who experience symptoms of cardiac arrest can be taken to the HSCs in villages where nurses will provide these life-saving emergency doses as first aid after consulting experienced doctors through facilities such as the eSanjeevani app,” Mr. Subramanian said at the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital, where he inaugurated a training programme for health workers earlier in the day.
He said there was an increase in the instances of youngsters experiencing cardiac arrest after the COVID-19 pandemic and experts need to conduct research to find out the reasons. Also, to save the victims of snakebites and dog bites from villages, all the 2,886 PHCs and UPHCs in the State had been maintaining stocks of anti-rabies vaccines (ARVs) and anti-snake venom (ASV) for the past two years, the Minister said. Earlier, ASV and ARVs were available only in taluk government hospitals, district headquarters hospitals and government medical college hospitals.
‘Will train nurses’
“Whenever senior health officials or I visit a village, we check whether vials of these drugs are available in the local PHC. For effective utilisation of these drugs, the government will train 30,000 nurses. The Coimbatore Medical College Hospital has been recognised as the State-level centre for this training,” he said.
