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| Edited By: Kinjal Desai |Source: DNA |Updated: Apr 08, 2012, 04:06 PM IST
Men seem to be at the receiving end of summer heat in Gujarat, if 2011 statistics of the 108 emergency services are anything to go by.
The number of men falling ill due to heat stroke was higher than the number of women needing emergency medical attention because of the same problem. The same was true of other cases handled by the service last year.
Bhanu Soni of GVK-EMRI's marketing department said that between January and December 2011, the 108 service had handled emergency calls for 13,338 people under 60 and 5,336 over 60. All these people had become unconscious due to heat.
"Of the patients mentioned above, 8288 were men and 5050 were women in the under 60 category. In the over 60 category, 2425 were men while 2911 were women. All these figures are for the state of Gujarat only," said Soni. Men seem to be more prone to abdominal ailments, too, including emergencies.
Of the total number of abdominal ailment cases handled by the 108 service last year, men were the patients in most of them. In the under 60 category, there were 29,264 male patients as compared to 27,185 women. Similarly, in the over 60 category, there were 4753 men and 4151 women patients.
Sources in the health sector said that there was nothing unusual in the figures as men, being the breadwinners in most families, go out to office or to earn through other jobs. Hence, they are more likely to fall ill as also to have accidents and become victims of crimes.
More men became victims of assault than women in 2011. EMRI figures say that of the cases handled by the 108 emergency service last year, there were 14,289 men in the under 60 category as compared to 4829 women in the same category.
In the over 60 category too, 680 men were assaulted as compared to 317 women. This is probably because of the increase in cases of assault on senior citizens.
Men outnumbered women in weak heart and accident cases too. While 12,585 men and 8855 women under 60 years were attended for cardiac or cardio-vascular emergencies, 5877 men and 4523 women over 60 were attended for the same problems.
