From scraped knees and elbows, to tummy aches and headaches, and more serious bleeding injuries, children at school have multiple medical issues that need to be attended immediately. A First-Aid-Kit is the first line of treatment for injuries and illnesses including those that do not require a trip to the hospital or significant ones, which do, where administering first aid limits the severity of damage.
India has 12 million schools, 87% located in villages, with less than 5% of them have access to a first aid kits in the school. We would like to help them by donating a first aid box. However, of the 100,000 schools in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telengana, less than half of them have access to first aid kits and meager financial resources are the primary reason for this.
We believe there are more than fifty conditions for which children need first aid in schools and these are the
Conditions that often require first aid among school kids:
| 1. Wounds and Beeding: | Including lacerations, incisions and abrasions, bleeding, and avulsions. |
| 2. Cramps in muscles: | Due to lactic acid build up caused either by inadequate oxygenation of muscle or lack of water or salt. |
| 3. Muscle strains and Sprains: | A temporary dislocation of a joint that immediately reduces automatically but may result in ligament damage |
| 4. Burns: | Which can result in damage to tissues and loss of body fluids through the burn site. |
| 5. Heavy bleeding: | Treated by applying pressure (manually and later with a pressure bandage) to the wound site and elevating the limb if possible. |
| 6. Heat stroke: | Also known as sunstroke or hyperthermia, which tends to occur during heavy exercise in high humidity, or with inadequate water, though it may occur spontaneously in some chronically ill persons. |
| 7. Choking: | Blockage of the airway which can quickly result in death due to lack of oxygen if the patient's trachea is not cleared, for example by the Heimlich Maneuver. |
| 8. Diabetes: | Hyperglycemia (diabetic coma) and Hypoglycemia (insulin shock) condition. |
| 9. Hypothermia: | or Exposure, occurs when a person's core body temperature falls below 33.7 C (92.6 F). First aid for a mildly hypothermic patient includes rewarming, which can be achieved by wrapping the affected person in a blanket, and providing warm drinks, such as soup, and high-energy food, such as chocolate.. |
| 10. Insect and animal bites and stings: | Bites from insects, eg mosquitoes, fleas, lice, bed bugs. |
| 11. Poisoning: | Which can occur by injection, inhalation, absorption, or ingestion. |
| 12. Toothache: | Which can result in severe pain and loss of the tooth. |
Every school will, at some time or another, have to deal with First-Aid emergencies. With kids moving around, many types of emergencies can happen. It is critical to be prepared at all times to quickly and effectively deal with these situations. We want all schools to be prepared with a HealBox in their premises to avoid such incidents.