First Aid Manual

For any kind intervention for any aliment or wounds, a First Aid Kit is a must. Whether you are at home, in your car, or at the place of work, the First Aid Kits are indispensable everywhere. The one we use at home is either assembled or bought from a chemist outlet, but industrial kits differ due to many reasons. It might be a particular geographical area or work. It can also be the government regulation. Sometimes it depends on the type of manufacturing or also the closeness of medical help present in the vicinity.

A manufacturing unit generally has qualified first aid officers to take care of proceedings. These kits can be assembled in any type of holder, but must be waterproof and clean. It can be from wallet size plastic box to as big as a back pack, it all depends upon the requirements and situation you handle. The other important thing is that the kit must be checked often to keep the contents germ free and replace with fresh stock, if expiry date is over. The aid box has a sign of a white cross on a green background suggested by International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

The basic contents of a box are numerous in numbers. There should be an artificial respiration kit like bag valve mask with manual aspirator or suction unit. There should be a pocket mask. It is essential to keep self sticking bandages or stick-type plasters for medical emergency. One should not forget the need for items used for dressing like the disinfected pads and gauzes to apply directly over wounds. Bandages are necessary for healing the injuries and broken limbs or hands etc. Next comes the making use of saline to clean up the injuries and soap to wash out harmful micro organisms or dirt. The most important item is antiseptic for reducing the risk of disease. Absence of it might result in highly critical situations. Again it is important to keep personal protective accessories like gloves, goggles, surgical masks and aprons readily accessible in the box. Instruments such as scissors, lighter, alcohol pads, syringe, thermometer and penlight are also necessary. Life saving medicines such as Aspirin and Epinephrine auto-injector also find a place in in a first aid kit. Pain killers such as Paracetamol, Ibuprofen and Naproxen are also included in such boxes. Codeine is used both as a painkiller and also as an antidiarrheal. Oral rehydrated salt is used in dehydration arising out of diarrhea. Some other vital ingredients in such box are oral rehydrated salt is used in dehydration because of diarrhea; some poison treatments and also some smelling salts. Lastly topical medicines like antiseptic ointment; Povidone Iodine, a liquid antiseptic; Aloe Vera gel, used for skin burn, itching, dry skin and sunburns; Hydrocortisone cream, anti-fungal cream are other components of the kit. Tincture of Benzene protects the skin from further sepsis and also helps in adhesion of self sticking bandages.

First aid has also some improvised uses especially in crityical situations. For example, the alcohol pads and petroleum jelly based ointments can be used to make a fire. Bandages can be used to fix things by securing them or tying them. Scissors can be used as a cutting instrument and certainly lighters can be used for ignition. As a matter of fact a first aid is helpful and can be used for diverse purposes in daily life of a human being.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 19th, 2009 at 4:57 am and is filed under Health and Fitness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.