| How to Maintain a First-Aid Kit |
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It is immediately reassuring to an injured child or any other casualty if you can produce a well-equipped first-aid kit, and it will probably help you to approach any situation confidently if you have certain essential items to hand. A casualty will certainly feel calmer if you show you can dress and bandage an injury professionally and you know how to apply a sling. However, in an emergency, nothing in a first-aid kit is as important as you and your ability to think on your feet and improvise with materials to hand. Communication with the outside world is also very important, so make best use of telephones, neighbors or passers-by, if you are able to. A clean and fully equipped first-aid kit in the home, in the car and in the workplace is very important. It should be easily accessible in a kitchen or bathroom cupboard but out of the reach of children. Some items are essential to a first-aid kit but you may find that you'll want to supplement the basic kit with items that you know you use a lot, such as ibuprofen tablets, paracetamol syrup for children or antihistamine cream. Such medicines do not form part of the first aid offered in emergencies and should be for personal use only. As well as making sure that you have a first-aid kit in the home and the car, you should be aware that every workplace and public recreation establishment and so on is legally required to have a first-aid kit on the premises. So an incident at such a location should prompt a call for their kit. First-aid kits for public use are not supposed to contain any kind of medicine (including ordinary painkillers) or ointments, in case casualties have an adverse reaction to them - what you have in your box at home for private and family use is entirely your affair, of course. |
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