An effort to help those in need of blood through a donation camp has once again thrown light on the stressful lives that the policemen of the city lead.
A voluntary camp organised by the HAL police on October 2 resulted in six of the 64 policemen who showed up being stopped from donating blood by the doctors as they were suffering from hypertension. Those flagged by the doctors included a traffic inspector and other lower rank officers.
Hypertension, or high blood pressure, which often has no symptoms but could lead to heart disease or stroke in the future, is endemic to those in stressful jobs like the city police.
According to senior officials, this is not a new phenomenon. A health survey conducted recently on policemen revealed that more than half of them suffered from serious ailments, while 30% of the total 2,700 traffic policemen had serious respiratory issues. Earlier this year, the then Home Minister G. Parameshwara had quoted a health check done for those above the age of 40 and said that 4,506 policemen suffered from hypertension, 3,712 from diabetes, and 7,050 suffered from both the conditions. A study on 235 traffic police officers in January this year at the St. John’s Medical College Hospital had highlighted reduced lung function in 31% of those tested, while 20% showed some form of respiratory symptoms, a figure which is much higher than the results for the general population.
HAL Police Station Inspector Sadiq Pasha, who organised the camp, said policemen had come across situations where victims of crime had suffered owing to lack of blood available in time at hospitals.
“We have come across cases on daily basis and realised that the there is a wide gap between demand and supply,” Mr. Pasha said. The blood collected from the camp was sent to major hospitals in the city, he added.
