Showing posts with label Medication. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Medication. Show all posts

Wednesday, 21 January 2015

First Aid and over-the-counter meds at events..

Those of you who aren't aware of my activities outside of med school: I volunteer at the Red Cross as a first aid provider at events. (Events being small local pop concerts, fairs, sports games, national holidays etc)
People generally never ask me for a paracetamol (acetaminophen) tablet. If they do, the occurrence is only about once or twice for every 50 hrs of volunteer work.
To be clear, our Dutch Red Cross district doesn't hand out pills if we can help it. Our volunteers also aren't given medication to hand out to people.
But at my latest 5-hr shift, I've been asked for aspirins/paracetamol/ibuprofen over 6 times.
Some people were suffering from headaches, others were trying to get one for their friend with a headache. And another was trying to get aspirins for a 2 year old child.

.. Uh. How about.. No.