A stroke is a medical emergency.
Failure or delay in recognising stroke signals or delay in reaching a stroke patient to an appropriate medical facility or worse still, delays at the hospital-end even after a patient manages to reach the facility within the golden hour window of three-and-a-half hours, has resulted in a huge burden of mortality as well as morbidity due to disability among the population here..
In order to ensure that stroke patients reaching the over-crowded casualty in the Government Medical College Hospital (MCH) are given diligent and timely care, the Department of Neurology at the MCH opened a stroke helpline on World Stroke Day on Wednesday.
Emergency diagnostics “If you dial 99463 32963 when you start from home and inform us, we will ensure that a neurologist is there at the Casualty to receive the stroke patient, rush him through the CT scan and other emergency diagnostics and do the necessary management without delays,” Thomas Iype, Prof and Head of Neurology, MCH, said.
A stroke helpline had become necessary not just because of the increasing incidence of stroke in the community, but also because a lot many cases of stroke reaching the over-crowded Casualty wing at the MCH were either being missed or appropriate treatment — thrombolysis to dissolve the blood clot blocking the blood supply to the brain — not delivered on time.
Hurdles “There are other hurdles too. The drug used for thrombolysis, recombinant Tissue Plasminogen Activator (tPA), is not available in the hospital pharmacy and has to be purchased by the patient from the Karunya pharmacy.
“Most of our poor patients cannot afford to buy this drug at Rs. 40,000.
Government help “Unless the government takes immediate steps to make this drug available for free, many indigent stroke victims would end up dying or living with severe disabilities,” Dr. Iype said.
The government needed to make emergency stroke care a public health priority and ensure that appropriate and timely care was not denied to the poor.
Recognise stroke If you think someone may be having a stroke, act F.A.S.T.
F.A.S.T refers to Face, Arms, Speech, Time. Face — ask the person to smile and see if the smile is drooping. Arms — check if the person is able to raise up both arms and hold it. Speech — check if the speech is slurred.
If any of these symptoms are there then Time is crucial and rush the person to the hospital
