The First Aid Kit

A first aid kit is a tin or plastic box that lives in a known place in your home, that everyone in the family can find in the dark, and that contains the things you need in the first ten minutes of an injury, before a doctor or rescue can take over. Most Pakistani homes do not have one. The result is people running around looking for Dettol while a child bleeds. This lesson is so that your home is not one of those homes.

Twelve things go in a basic Pakistani home first aid kit. From any pharmacy (Shaheen, D Watson, Servaid, or your local kiryana medical store) the whole list costs under two thousand rupees. One: a roll of cotton wool. Two: a bottle of pyodine (povidone iodine) for wound cleaning. Three: a small bottle of saline water for eye washing. Four: a tube of burnol or silver sulfadiazine cream for burns. Five: a strip of paracetamol (Panadol or Calpol). Six: a strip of antihistamine (Avil) for allergic reactions. Seven: ORS sachets for dehydration. Eight: a roll of medical tape. Nine: a packet of band aids in mixed sizes. Ten: a roll of gauze bandage and a crepe bandage. Eleven: a pair of scissors and a pair of tweezers. Twelve: a digital thermometer.

When to call rescue, when to drive, when to wait. Call 1122 or Edhi 115 if the person is unconscious, having a seizure, struggling to breathe, bleeding heavily and the bleed will not stop with ten minutes of firm pressure, has a head injury and is confused or vomiting, or has been electrocuted. Drive to a clinic or hospital ER yourself if the person is awake and stable but the injury is deeper than a band aid can handle: a cut needing stitches, a possible broken bone, a burn larger than the palm of your hand, food poisoning that has caused four hours of vomiting. Stay home and treat with the kit if it is a small cut, a small burn, a fever under 102, a sprain that can bear weight, or a stomach upset that is improving with ORS.

Cleaning a cut, the right way. Wash your own hands first with soap. Run cold tap water over the cut for one full minute to flush dirt. Pat dry with a clean cloth, not cotton (cotton sheds fibres into the wound). Pour a little pyodine on a fresh piece of cotton and dab around the cut, never inside it. Cover with a band aid for small, gauze and tape for larger. Change the dressing once a day. If the wound starts to look red around the edges, swell, throb, or smell on day three or four, that is infection; go to a clinic for antibiotics.

Treating a burn from the kitchen or iron. Get the burn under cool tap water (not ice, not toothpaste, not flour, not ghee, all of which the aunties will suggest and all of which trap heat or grow infection) for fifteen full minutes. Use a clock; the urge to stop after three minutes is strong, and three minutes is not enough. After fifteen minutes, pat dry, apply a thin layer of burnol, cover loosely with gauze. If the burn is bigger than your palm, has burst into blisters covering an area larger than a hundred rupee note, or is on the face, hands, feet, or genitals, drive to an ER, do not just keep applying cream.

The kit is not a substitute for a doctor; it is the bridge to a doctor. The bridge has to be in good condition. Once every six months, open the box, check expiry dates on every medicine, replace anything you used. Make this a calendar reminder for the first of January and the first of July. The day you open it for the first time should be today.