Pakistan to have own resuscitation guidelines, life-saving courses: health ministry

ISLAMABAD: A technical working group has been formed by the ministry of health to develop national resuscitation guidelines as well as courses to provide basic and advanced life support for the management of cardiopulmonary arrest and cardiovascular emergencies in the country.

According to the Ministry of National Health National Services, Regulations and Coordination (NHS,R&C) on Wednesday,critical care specialist Dr Arshad Taqi will lead the technical group while the other members include Prof. Shahzad Ali Khan, the vice chancellor of Health Services Academy; Shahab Naqvi, Bahria Hospital Rawalpindi; Safdar Ali Khan; Rashid Siddiqui; Dr Faisal Khan,Aga Khan University; Dr Asif Malik and the deputy director from the NCDs section of the ministry of health.

“Pakistan not only lacks its own resuscitation guidelines but also courses like Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS), Basic Life Support (BLS) and Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS). We have to spend huge foreign exchange to get our people trained for these courses, developed by the American Heart Association (AHA)”, said Dr. Arshad Taqi.

He added that technical working group constituted by the ministry had been entrusted with the task to develop Pakistan’s own life support courses for professionals and common people.

Dr Taqi said basic life support course help

people in recognizing

several life-threatening emergencies, giving high-quality chest compressions, delivering appropriate ventilations and providing early use of an Automated External Defibrillator (AED).

Similarly, ACLS course builds on the foundation of lifesaving BLS skills, emphasizing the importance of continuous, high-quality CPR while pediatric advanced life support course helps in providing first aid to children in case of medical emergencies.

Vice Chancellor HSA Prof. Shahzad Ali Khan said their working group will formulate national resuscitation guidelines as per international liaison committee on resuscitation recommendations while all the basic, advanced and pediatric courses would be developed in liaison with the Health Services Academy.

“The group has also been assigned the task of developing a comprehensive program for the training of master trainers, instructors and providers to implement the practice of standardized CPR across the country”, Prof. Khan maintained.