The relationship between first aid and emergency health includes

The core relationship between first aid and emergency health is the interconnected and complementary relationship of "pre-hospital treatment - full chain protection". The two are neither one-way inclusion nor completely parallel independent systems. Together they form a safety barrier for the entire cycle from the occurrence of sudden health risks to professional medical intervention.

In the late autumn of last year, I was doing a community emergency science free clinic in the old town. As soon as I set up the stall, I heard a commotion at the chess stall next to me. An old man suddenly covered his chest and fell down while he was in the middle of the game. There happened to be a retired nurse next to him. He had taken our first aid class before, and he knelt down on the spot to perform chest surgery. After pressing, the onlookers ran to get the AED (automated external defibrillator) that had just been installed in the community for half a year. It was used in less than four minutes. When 120 was pulled away, the uncle could already open his eyes. Later, follow-up visits said that the recovery was very good, and there were not many sequelae. If you wait until 120 is reached before dealing with it, once the golden four minutes have passed, there is a high probability that you will suffer serious brain damage after you rescue it.

The public health community has actually always had different views on the boundary between the two. There is a group of scholars doing grassroots public health research who believe that first aid itself is a core component of the emergency health system. Indicators such as public first aid penetration rate, AED coverage rate, and pre-hospital first aid response speed should be included. All are included in the local emergency health assessment system. The "five-minute first aid circle" now promoted in places like Shenzhen and Hangzhou is based on this idea, and the effect is indeed visible. The pre-hospital survival rate for myocardial infarction in Shenzhen last year was 27 percentage points higher than in 2018, which is the most direct proof. However, there are also disaster response scholars who do not agree with this division. They believe that first aid in extreme scenarios such as earthquakes, floods, and major work safety accidents must also take into account capabilities such as disaster rescue, on-site control, and batch casualty sorting that do not fall within the scope of conventional public health. Completely inserting first aid into the framework of emergency health will limit the efficiency of rescue in extreme scenarios. I have participated in the emergency rescue preparation for a wildfire before, and I really have this feeling. The first responders in that scenario have to know how to avoid the wildfire, how to carry stretchers in the mountains without roads, and how to debridement a large number of injured people when water and power are cut off. Many abilities are indeed beyond the coverage of conventional emergency health.

To be honest, most ordinary people may never encounter extreme disasters in their lives, but daily first aid capabilities are actually the first step in emergency health protection that you can control. I once had a student who was a second-year junior high school student. On the way to school, he met an aunt riding an electric bike who was knocked down by a car and suffered an open fracture in her calf. He did not dare to move her casually. He called 120 first to find out the exact location. He then took out a clean school uniform sleeve from his school bag and tied the proximal end of the wound to stop the bleeding. He also found cardboard on the side of the road to stabilize the leg. When the ambulance arrived, the doctor said that his handling was completely standardized and avoided the risk of secondary injuries and heavy bleeding. You see, this is an individual's first aid behavior, which makes up for the window period before the official emergency health system responds. After all, no matter how fast the ambulance is, it cannot be waiting at the scene of the accident.

To use an analogy, emergency health is like a health protection network woven by the city for all residents. From daily public health monitoring and emergency material reserves to the response to public health emergencies and the construction of a pre-hospital first aid system, everything is included in this network. And first aid is the "trigger point" at the front of this network - whether it is the hands of an ordinary person doing cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or the defibrillator in the hands of a first responder, or the emergency shuttle bus of a community health service center, it is the first level to cover sudden risks. If this level cannot be caught, no matter how dense the network behind it is, there will inevitably be a risk of leakage.

In fact, I have been doing emergency science popularization for so many years, and I feel more and more that there is no need to make the relationship between the two either/or. For ordinary people, if you learn more about the Heimlich maneuver and know where the AEDs are near your home, you will have an extra layer of insurance for yourself and those around you in terms of emergency health. ； For the management department, whether it is to include first aid in emergency health assessments or to reserve sufficient resources for first aid in extreme scenarios, as long as it can really save people when an accident occurs, it is right. After all, whether it is first aid or emergency health, in the final analysis, they are all aimed at "allowing more people to survive safely before sudden risks," right?