Annie are you OK?

Annie are you OK?
So, Annie are you OK?
Are you OK, Annie?

Who could forget the lyrics to this 1988 hit by Michael Jackson, Smooth Criminal. But just who exactly was this Annie character? And why was Michael asking her if she was OK? Spike Lee knows, he spills the beans in his new documentary about Jackson’s album containing the song, Bad 25. Turns out Annie is based on the CPR doll, originally called Resusci Anne, or Annie. And “Are you OK” is one of the first steps to assessing whether to perform CPR on someone. Seems like Michael Jackson was CPR trained.  Are you? November is CPR month; take a Red Cross first aid course so you too will know what to do if Annie is not OK.

New London sanitation exhibit to get people talking about poo

Admit it—talk around the dinner table at your house most likely never turns to what happens in the privacy of the washroom. The folks at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) are trying to change that with a new exhibition. It’s part of the organization’s efforts to help fight diseases that cause diarrhoea, which kill more children than malaria, HIV/AIDS and measles combined.

“People don’t talk about poo enough, and if we don’t talk about poo, how are we going to solve the problem of diarrhoeal diseases?” asked Val Curtis, director of the LSHTM’s Hygiene Centre, in this article on AlertNet.

The month-long exhibition includes a selection of toilet designs, scientific tools for the study of feces, in addition to the statue seen above. Although using humour, the exhibit is asking people to engage in a serious and important subject matter.

I recently returned from a mission with the Red Cross in Sierra Leone in response to a cholera outbreak. The deadly disease is spread when feces from an infected person gets into the water or food people eat. If they don’t get help quickly, people can die from severe dehydration due to vomiting and diarrhea. Talking about safe hygiene and sanitation practices was key to the prevention activities we were undertaking in Sierra Leone.

Research into new and improved sanitation methods for developing countries, which means yes, more talk about poo, is crucial to preventing deaths due to diarrhea for many vulnerable populations around the world.

I’m ready for a disaster, are you?

By Nicole Robicheau

As a new Red Cross staff member working with Public Affairs in Ottawa, I’ve recently been going through some of the materials we have on disaster preparedness in Canada.  I’m trained as an ERU delegate, so I’ve learned the skills necessary to go into a disaster, like the Haiti Earthquake in 2010, and set up a hospital that can be fully operational within 12 hours. But like many Canadians, I never really thought that something like the Haiti earthquake could happen here.

But I’m wrong.

The Canadian Red Cross responds to disasters in Canada every four hours, this could be anything from a fire, to a flood, to a tornado, or an avalanche. Inspired by the Red Cross, on my way home from work just recently, I grabbed eight litres of water from the grocery store, cleared out one of the cupboards in my kitchen, and started setting up my own emergency preparedness area.

So far I’ve got canned goods (enough to keep me going for 72 hours), a flashlight, a radio, copies of my ID and some batteries. Look here for additional items the Red Cross recommends you have on hand in your emergency kit. I hope I will never have to use these things, but it’s a fairly easy and cheap way to potentially save my life, or the lives of my loved ones. I feel better now knowing it’s there.

Set up your home emergency kit today!