Published5 hours agoSharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, P Geetha’s familyBy Imran QureshiBBC HindiAn Indian nurse who was travelling to be honoured for her work has been praised for saving the life of her co-passenger on a flight. Geetha P was travelling from the southern state of Kerala to the national capital Delhi to attend a function to honour winners of the Florence Nightingale award for nurses.But 30 minutes after the plane took off, the cabin crew made an announcement calling for medical help.Suman, a soldier on his way to Indian-administered Kashmir, had collapsed in his seat and showed no signs of a pulse. “I started CPR [Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation] when he was on his seat,” Ms Geetha told the BBC. “One of my colleagues had collapsed like this in the hospital and I had given CPR and rushed her into the cardiac intensive care unit. There were several other cases too in the hospital. But this is the first time I had to do this on a flight,” she said.After the CPR, there were some signs of a pulse.The flight crew had two bottles of IV fluids. Another doctor on the flight, Premkumar, who had also rushed to help, quickly applied a cannula to the patient.”In about an hour or so, Suman was able to eat something, too. Throughout the flight, I sat next to him in the back of the plane,” Ms Geetha says.Once the plane landed in Delhi, a medical team rushed Suman to a hospital, where he is recovering.Image source, P Geetha’s familyDr Mohammed Asheel, a World Health Organization officer who was on the same plane, told the BBC that he first thought Ms Geeta was Suman’s relative when she and others ran to help him. “I saw a woman attending to the patient and three other doctors – one an emergency care specialist – who had already rushed to the seat,” he said. After the flight landed, Dr Asheel spoke to Ms Geetha and was surprised to learn that she had also received the “Best Nurse” award in 2019 from the Kerala government. “It is such a strange coincidence that she was going to Delhi to be felicitated by the president for receiving the Florence Nightingale award, and then she helped save the life of a patient, mid-air,” Dr Asheel says.Ms Geetha won the national award in 2020 but the ceremony had to be conducted virtually due to the Covid pandemic. She and other past winners had been invited to Delhi to be honoured by President Droupadi Murmu.Her award citation refers to her work during the deadly Nipah viral outbreak that hit Kerala in 2018.She was also involved in disaster management operations during the massive floods in the state in 2018 and 2019 as well as the battle against Covid-19.Image source, P Geetha’s familyMs Geetha started her career at the government medical college hospital in the northern district of Kozhikode and later worked across the state.She is currently working at a private hospital in Kozhikode after retiring from government service earlier this year.Tens of thousands of nurses from Kerala work in hospitals outside India, but Ms Geetha says she never regretted not going abroad.”It was God’s will that I should serve people here.”Read more India stories from the BBC:Can India really adopt a climate-friendly lifestyle?India shocked as men sentenced to death for rape freedThe Indian-American ‘helping’ Elon Musk run TwitterHow a tourist spot became a bridge of deathWhere is India’s billionth baby now?India jackpot winner’s journey from delight to dreadMore on this storyThe civilian heroes of India’s plane crash tragedy16 August 2020’Hero’ nurse who died battling Nipah22 May 2018India patient airlifted from US in 26-hour-flight22 July

Published8 hours agoSharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingBy Imran QureshiBBC HindiA village in India’s Maharashtra state has declared “independence” from two modern-day addictions – television and mobile internet. At least, for a couple of hours every day.A siren goes off at 7pm every evening in Vadgaon village in Sangli district, an indication to all residents to switch off their TV sets and mobile phones.The two instruments of “addiction” can be switched on when the village council sounds the siren again at 8.30pm.”We decided at the village meeting on 14 August – the eve of India’s Independence Day – that we needed to stop this addiction,” Vijay Mohite, president of the village council, told BBC Hindi. “From the next day, all television sets and mobiles were shut down when the siren went off.” Vadgaon has a population of about 3,000 people, made up largely of farmers and sugar mill workers.Mr Mohite said children had become dependent on TV and mobile phones for online classes during the Covid-19 pandemic. As educational institutions reopened this year, children returned to regular classes in schools and colleges.”But they returned [from class] to either play on their mobile phones or sit and watch television,” he said, adding that many adults were also spending too much time on their devices and not talking to each other. Vandana Mohite (not related to Vijay Mohite) said she was finding it difficult to supervise her two children “because they would be focused completely on playing with the phone or watching TV”.”Since this new norm began, it is far easier for my husband to return home from work and help them study and I can peacefully do my work in the kitchen,” she added. But it was not easy for the village council to get everyone to agree with the idea of a digital detox.Mr Mohite said initially, when the council discussed the issue and a proposal was taken to the villagers, men scoffed at the idea. The council then gathered the village women, who were open enough to admit that they could get drawn into watching a lot of TV serials and agreed that the entire village should shut down television and mobiles for a few hours. Another meeting of the council was held and it was decided that a siren would be installed above the village temple. Why India has world’s cheapest mobile dataThe forgotten ‘father of internet’ in IndiaThe decision was not easy to implement. As the siren went off, council staff and groups of villagers had to go around, urging people to switch off their TVs and mobile phones. “[Now], the decision has finally been implemented fully across the village,” Mr Mohite says. But, does briefly switching off your TV and phone help?It can, says Dr Manoj Kumar Sharma, professor of clinical psychology at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (Nimhans).”Covid has increased preference for online activities or time spent on online activities,” he says. A study conducted by Dr Sharma and his colleagues among 682 adults (495 female and 187 male) between July and December 2020, showed that “problematic internet use” was a rapidly emerging phenomenon among adolescents and young adults. It is one of the most critical challenges that has emerged from increased internet usage. “The risk for problematic usage increases with excessive non-productive usage of the internet, which can cause psychological stress,” the study found. “It has the potential to harm many aspects of adolescent life.”Adolescents predisposed to psychological stress or those experiencing stress were likely to use the internet in its many forms to escape temporarily from unpleasant emotional states, it added. This could lead to them skipping in-person social interactions, social get-togethers, family interactions and extracurricular events to gradually become isolated.Why India is the world leader of internet shutdownsConscious digital fasting as a family to engage in quality-based activities is a cornerstone for decreasing dependence on online activities, Dr Sharma says.”You need to talk to children and ensure they have physical or offline leisure activities as well as adequate sleep and food intake,” he says.Dilip Mohite, a sugarcane farmer who has three school-going sons, says he can see the difference the decision has made. “The children were just not concentrating on their studies before,” he says. “Now, there is normal conversation [at home, even] among the adults.” Read more India stories from the BBC:India facing a pandemic of resistant superbugsIndian political stalwart Mulayam Singh Yadav diesAmitabh Bachchan as you’ve never seen him beforeWhy Indians are fleeing halfway around the worldTiger that killed nine people in India shot dead Gambia police probe deaths linked to Indian syrup India student alleges rape in school by seniors