Summer can be a great time of year with so many things to do outdoors and children being out of school. However, it can also be a dangerous time of year. Between the danger of heat stroke to knowing water safety when at the beach, it is important to know what to do in any emergency situation.
“We’ve seen that there is a need for education in our community,” said Jodi Ryder, Community Benefit Manager for the Singing River Health System. “A lot of the things that come into the hospital, we feel like could be prevented. We started to do an education series about some of these preventable health topics, things that people could act upon, not necessarily prevent the disease, but catch it earlier and things that you can do at home.”
Mondays talk covered topics that emergency departments see often, such as heart attacks and strokes, along with summer topics, such as drowning and heat stroke.
“Those are things that increase in number in our emergency department,” Ryder said. “Because we are a coastal community, water safety is so huge here. Heat safety is huge here, so we are addressing those needs here today.”
While this was the last in this series of educational talks, the Singing River Health System is hoping to expand these talks to the community.
“What we want to do next is go out in our community, go where the people are, have people request us,” Ryder said. “We’ll send one of our providers out to talk about some of the issues. We can pick the topic based on what we see as a need, or, if a certain community group such as a child care facility wants us to come and speak to all of their staff about safety issues or maybe a school, we could do that. We we want to increase those topics as education topics and meeting the needs the community is suggesting.”
Another talk will be held at Singing River Hospital’s Turner Center on Wednesday, June 14. The talk will last from 12:15-12:45 p.m., and lunch will be provided.
