Over six per cent increase in emergency calls in Ahmedabad for heat stroke-related symptoms in the fourth week of March compared to the fourth week of February has been recorded by GVK Emergency Management and Research Institute (EMRI).
This comes against the backdrop of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) predicting “heat wave conditions very likely to prevail at isolated pockets in the districts of Ahmedabad”, among other districts on April 2.
The data for Ahmedabad as accessed by the Indian Express from GVK EMRI, which provides emergency ambulance 108 services in the state, shows persons reporting symptoms of abdominal pain has gone up by 34 per cent in the fourth week of March (from March 22 to 28) as compared to fourth week of February (between February 22 and 28) and persons reporting vomiting and diarrhoea has gone up by 32 per cent in this period.
GVK EMRI’s analysis for summer heat-related emergency calls show an overall spike of six percent in the fourth week of March compared to the fourth week of February.
Two heat stroke-related symptoms, abdominal pain and vomiting and diarrhoea, have, however, clocked in over 30 per cent emergency calls in the fourth week of March.
As an official from GVK EMRI explains, “We have a specific classification for ‘heat stroke’ when we receive an emergency call for an ambulance but usually what we see is when the caller calls, they are not sure if it is heat stroke or some other issue. So at the time of the call we are unable to tag the emergency as a ‘heat stroke’.”
“A paramedic too may not be able to always differentiate if it is a heat stroke or not but a doctor or medical expert will be. So what we do is, use other indicators of heat stroke such as abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhoea, severe headache, chest pain, fall or unconsciousness, to correlate with heat stroke during summer,” the official added.
Emergency calls reporting severe headaches too have gone up by 16 per cent while emergencies due to fainting or unconsciousness too have seen a marginal increase of one percent.
According to IMD’s five-day forecast as of 6 pm of March 29, heat wave conditions are “very likely to prevail at isolated pockets in the districts of North Gujarat region namely Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Banaskantha, Sabarkantha, Patan, Mehsana,; in the districts of Saurashtra-Kutch namely Rajkot, Porbandar, Junagadh, Surendranagar, Amreli and Kutch.”
[“source=indianexpress”]
