What is the relationship between first aid and emergency health

To put it simply, first aid is the front-end "touch port" of the emergency health system. It is the last mile that implements public-level emergency health protection to the life safety of each individual. The two are point-to-point interdependencies - emergency health is a system engineering covering the entire chain of risk warning, science education, pre-hospital treatment, and in-hospital treatment, and first aid is the core node in this system that first connects with individuals who are suddenly injured or injured.

I have been doing emergency science popularization in the community for almost five years, and I have met too many people who separate the two. I always feel that emergency health is a matter of the National Health Commission and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while first aid is a matter of 120 medical care, and ordinary people cannot get involved. Last month, something happened in our community. Uncle Zhang, a 62-year-old boy, went downstairs to buy groceries during the morning rush hour. He suddenly suffered a heart attack and fell to the ground just as he walked to the door of the community. No one dared to move around him. A sophomore who came to listen to our science education last week was buying breakfast next to him.

Of course, different voices have always existed. Concerns have been raised at several science popularization sites: Ordinary people do not have the qualifications to practice medicine. Non-standard first aid operations can easily cause secondary injuries, and they cannot be held responsible if something goes wrong. In the past two years, there was news about well-intentioned people who crushed the ribs of the injured during rescue operations and were compensated for compensation. Some scholars in the field of public policy research have also pointed out that the boundaries of the rights and responsibilities of ordinary citizens in first aid have not been fully clarified. Excessive encouragement of non-professionals to rescue may lead to unnecessary disputes. Such concerns are not unreasonable. But looking at it from another perspective, the core goal of emergency health is to reduce the death and disability rate of sudden injuries as much as possible. The golden rescue window for cardiac arrest is only 4 minutes. Even in the core urban section, it takes at least seven or eight minutes to get to the 120 in the morning and evening peaks. In the gap period in between, who else can we rely on to fill in the gaps without relying on ordinary people on the scene?

To use an inappropriate analogy, emergency health is like the entire fire prevention system in your home. The whole chain of smoke alarms, fire escapes, community fire stations, and firefighters is effective. First aid is the fire extinguisher you can easily get at the entrance of your home. If there is a fire, in the ten minutes you wait for the firefighters to come, you have a fire extinguisher in your hand and can use it to extinguish the small fire and prevent it from burning the entire home.

In the past two years, I have been doing science popularization in communities, and I can clearly feel that more and more people are willing to stop and learn cardiopulmonary resuscitation and the Heimlich maneuver for half an hour. More and more AEDs are equipped in subways, shopping malls, and residential areas. In fact, it is to move the front-end port of first aid closer to ordinary people. Only the protection network of emergency health can truly cover every sudden unexpected moment.