Today I finished coding the contact database and it is now out for Beta testing by users. So, moving on to research for the home based medical kit.
It sounds simple enough just list everything you need for an comprehensive emergency home based medical kit. OK, I’m not a medical expert so I defer to two paramedics who live next door. After a bit of a discussion we have come up with a list of what items we need to have in a first aid kit, a travel first aid kit and an advanced home first aid kit. Didn’t take too long either. Then we stalled.
None of us has any idea how many of each item we need. As paramedics they take out a fully stocked ambulance. Use a few items and replace them. The emphasis is on quick fixes and transport to hospital so they don’t have to worry about changing bandages and have no idea how many get used on a single patient. So much for my master plan.
So I have three lists and just guesses for quantities. I’m going to email some experts and trawl the web tomorrow and see what is suggested.
Quantities are always going to be difficult in a situation where re-stocking is going to be effectively impossible.
Perhaps you should concentrate on ratios more than absolute values.
One Triangle bandage for every four sticky plasters, sort of thing.
Then people can decide themselves whether they want one set of everything on the list (one triangle bandage and 4 sticky plasters) or two sets of everything (2 triangle bandages and 8 sticky plasters) and so on.
I acknowledge there are still weaknesses in this system, a sling is re-useable where a dressing is not and so on.
In my experience most first aid kits are for dealing with trivial cuts and scrapes. They contain lots of tiny plasters and soothing gels. I can’t remember the last time I used one.
A paramedic kit is intended to stabilise a patient until they get to hospital. Dressings, neck braces and saline solution but very little that’s going to actually heal the individual.
What we’re really looking for is the contents of a portable medical kit, the sort of thing a doctor volunteering in a 3rd world country would take with them or what an aid agency would ship to a clinic in the 3rd world.
Skvez,
That is how I have been looking today. The information is not readily available but I shall keep trying.
Good idea but what ratios? Where to start?
Other possible options for getting a good ‘complete’ medical kit might be the medical kit on a submarine or on the Antarctic research station. Places where they have to deal with whatever happens without any expectation to be able to pass the patient on.
The flip-side being that as these are ‘closed environments’ infectious diseases are unlikely to be a problem for them where they would still be in a survival situation.
Skvez,
Excellent idea. I’ll check those out. Must be easier than what I am doing here.
Well. It was a good idea but sadly did not deliver.
It seems everyone makes the assumption that things can be airlifted in or the casualty airlifted out in real emergencies. Remote villages just have to make do with what the doctors can scavange and have no real stocks.
So back to guessing. I’ll have it err, finished by Sunday.