It comes at no surprise that under colonialism, African people everywhere are suffering from imposed diseases and treatable illnesses, with little to no access to adequate medical treatment or assistance.
Understanding that colonialism creates these conditions for our people, it is clear that solutions will not come from the oppressor─in the form of the Red Cross or the United Nations─but will come from an organization placed on a revolutionary trajectory.
That solution is the All African People’s Development and Empowerment Project (AAPDEP) and its Project Black Ankh serving as the African Nation’s disaster relief response.
This program was created to provide genuine aid and assistance to our people all around the world and to prevent parasitic charity corporations, such as the Red Cross, from coming into Africa and other places we are to rape, murder and loot while we’re already vulnerable from imperialism’s disasters.
To ensure Project Black Ankh (PBA) is successful in its mission, PBA is initiating a CPR/First Aid Training.
A recent August 2017 study by Duke Clinical Research Institute shows that the chances of receiving out-of-hospital CPR for cardiac arrest in a predominately African neighborhood is far less than those that live in majority-white communities.
Lead author of the Duke Clinical Research Institute study, Monique Starks, M.D., states that “we have known that there are differences in rates of survival from cardiac arrest between blacks and whites, but it was surprising to see how the demographics of neighborhood affected outcomes of residents who experienced cardiac arrest.”
The American Heart Association reports that the risk of heart disease, which is the number one killer for people living in the United States, is even higher for Africans in America.
Diabetes, obesity and hypertension are all risks factors that plague African families and communities.
The Duke study went on to show that overall, nearly 40 percent of people stricken by cardiac arrest outside the hospital received bystander CPR.
In white neighborhoods, the rate was almost 47 percent, but in predominantly black neighborhoods, the rate was just 18 percent!
The study also found that people from mixed-to-majority black communities had significantly lower survival rates at hospital discharge.
Compared with patients who experienced a cardiac arrest in mainly white communities, those in African neighborhoods were slightly younger, more frequently female, had lower rates of initial shockable rhythm and less frequently experienced their heart event in a public location.
The use of an external defibrillator or AED was similarly disproportionate by national make up of the neighborhoods.
In mostly white communities, 4.5 percent of cardiac arrest victims received defibrillation from a bystander, compared to 0.9 percent in black communities.
Starks states “we clearly see treatments and outcomes for patients with cardiac arrest in black neighborhoods are worse than those in white neighborhoods.”
The findings, the researchers noted, pointed to a lack of education about cardiac arrest and CPR in general among people living in African communities.
The Duke Clinical Research Institute’s findings mirror an earlier study by the European Resuscitation Council (ERU), which it published in its journal in 2006.
The ERU study, which was conducted in Detroit, Michigan, a predominantly African major metropolitan city in the United States (81 percent), where the median household income is $30,000 and 21 percent of inhabitants live below the poverty line, concluded that of 471 cases in 2002, 94.1 percent of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests died before hospital admission.
Overall, survival of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is low, but African people can conclude that the survival rates for us is much lower depending on the demographic of our communities.
Slower EMS response times, less healthcare resources, and many other contributing health factors makes these findings truly disturbing.
African people being educated and the communication of the risk of cardiac arrest and its contributing factors are life saving and revolutionary acts.
Monique Starks, M.D. suggests that “organizations such as the American Heart Association and the American Red Cross, along with medical centers and public health departments, have a unique opportunity to address this issue with dedicated education programs that are particularly tailored for black neighborhoods. This is a relatively low-cost solution that could save lives.”
Programs by organizations that have no stake in the survival of African people and have long histories of exploiting African people during natural disasters and health crises and emergencies are not the solution to the problem.
Studies and research findings without material solutions, that are not led by the future of an organized African people is no solution at all.
African people can take these matters into our own hands by supporting the African People’s Socialist Party and its All AAPDEP “Operation: Serket”; a CPR/first aid and disaster preparedness training and risk communication program spearheaded by its Project Black Ankh, the African response to the Red Cross!
A tailor made program for African people, by African people that works in the interests of African people, to organize African families, communities and neighborhoods for our collective survival while raising our people’s quality of life is what is needed.
“Operation: Serket” will carry the theory of African Internationalism into public health and disaster preparedness.
African people should understand the health risks of natural disaster and disease. African people should also understand the health risks of colonialism and the many ways it impacts African lives!
Support the African People’s Socialist Party!
Support the All African People’s Development Project!
Build the Black Ankh!
Donate to the Ankh at: developmentforafrica.org
