• Home
• /
• Education

Schools advised to buy portable electronic heart devices

The Dubai Health Authority has advised schools to be equipped with portable electronic heart devices so as to enhance emergency care after a few cases of cardiac issues were reported over the past academic year.

An official from the authority said that schools were advised to buy Automated External Defibrillators (AED) which is a portable device to monitor cardiac arrhythmia during an emergency though it was not a compulsory school health policy for this academic year at least.

Medical staff at schools will also be required to be certified in handling these machines, said Amal Al Mehrezi, Head of School Health and Education Institutions, Health Regulation Department at the authority. “This is an advice and we hope schools will volunteer to be equipped in cases of emergency,” she said. She added that the medical team in one of the GEMS schools in Dubai had managed to save the life of a six-year-old boy who needed help.

“The use is not limited to children but is also applicable to staff as well. There was also a recent case of a bus driver who was suffering from chest pains and had to be treated immediately,” she added.The DHA recently held a meeting with school principals to discuss school health guidelines and policies which need to be implemented for the new academic year.

“School health policies are essential to ensure every child is protected and that the school environment is safe for them,” said Khalid Al Sheikh Mubarak, Deputy Director-General of the DHA.

Medical staff, vaccines

Some points in the guidelines that were revised last year will be implemented starting this academic year. These guidelines are on medical staff and student ratio, free vaccinations, procurement and storage of vaccines at right temperatures, first aid etc.

Dr Ramadan Ibrahim, Director of Regulation, said: “The DHA provides certain free vaccines for students from the age of 5 to 18 and parents can decide whether they would like their children to receive these vaccines at school or not. All schools are supposed to keep a check on the exact number of vaccines they need and they have to follow accurate administration and storage guidelines.” He said the free vaccines include the Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV), Diphtheria Pertusis (DP), measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR), tetanus-diphtheria (TD), Hepatitis B vaccine (HBV) and bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) which is a vaccine for tuberculosis (TB). “The school health immunisation guidelines also stipulate the mandatory medical professional to student ratio. This ratio is important because it ensures adequate medical professionals are present in schools,” said Al Mehrezi.

She said schools with less than 1,000 children are required to have one full-time nurse and one part-time doctor. Schools which have less than 2,000 children are required to have two full-time doctors and one full-time nurse and schools that have more than 2,000 children are required to have two full-time nurses for every 1,000 students and two full-time doctors.

The authority also plans to introduce a wireless refrigeration monitoring system that will allow schools and the DHA to monitor the appropriate temperature for vaccine storage.

“We also plan to introduce a live chat system which will allow school authorities to post their query to the DHA regulation officials,” said Dr Ibrahim.

asmaalizain@khaleejtimes.com