Nagpur.
With the mercury rising menacingly, the Health Department of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has issued an advisory to citizens on precautions to be taken to avoid sunstroke and other heat related complications. The NMC has described causes of sunstroke, its symptoms and preventive measures and treatment. These are as follows:
Causes of sunstroke: Exposure to heat for a prolonged period of time. The summer heat proves fatal. Working in boiler rooms of factories, glass factories or rooms having excess heat, tight clothing etc.
Symptoms: Heat exhaustion is where a person experiences fatigue (extreme tiredness), high fever, dry skin, loss of appetite, fainting, lethargic feeling, headache, high blood pressure, uneasiness and unconsciousness, etc.
Preventive steps: Stay out of the sun during hottest parts of the day, avoid extreme physical exertion, avoid dark coloured cloths that suck heat, use loose, white cloths, have plenty of water, juices, eat cold foods, particularly salads and fruit with a high water content, avoid working in sun off and on, rest in shadows, wear goggles, caps, scarves while going out in the sun, etc.
Treatment: Patients should be kept in airy rooms, keep fans, coolers in rooms, try to bring temperature down, bathe patients with ice water, apply cool cloth strips on forehead, ice packs, administer saline as preliminary treatment. Thereafter, immediately take advise from expert doctors.
All the NMC hospitals including Isolation Hospital, Government hospitals are well equipped to deal with sunstroke patients. The private doctors have been directed to inform NMC about patients being admitted in their hospitals.
– RAJEEV RANJAN KUSHWAHA(rajeev.nagpurtoday@gmail.com)
