Jaipur doctor conferred with Padma Shri for raising awareness on road safety training
The Centre announced the Padma awards for 132 people on Thursday.
The list includes five Padma Vibhushan awardees, seventeen Padma Bhushan awardees and 110 Padma Shri awardees. Dr Maya Tandon from Jaipur, was named as one of the winners of the Padma Shri awards this year.
Dr Maya Tandon has been working to raise awareness about road safety for over 30 years. She has saved the lives of several road accident victims through her organisation ‘Sahayata’.
Talking to India Today TV, she said, “I focus more on awareness about life-saving methods during road accidents. This is because everyone is aware of road safety methods, but they are rarely aware of life-saving methods.”
After finishing her schooling from Sophia School in Ajmer, she joined the Sawai Man Singh Medical College in Jaipur. After a long career spanning decades, Dr Tandon retired as the Superintendent of JK Lawn Hospital in Jaipur.
She said that as very few people know about life-saving methods as they are medical components, they started creating awareness about it for the public for over three decades, so that even ordinary people can help in saving road accident victims.
“The American Heart Association says that applying pressure on the heart and giving mouth-to-mouth breathing (CPR) should be done in case of any emergency. Recently, the Indian Resuscitation Council has confirmed that life can be saved only by applying pressure on the heart for 120 times a minute. But several people are unaware of this process and are unable to give CPR. As anaesthesiologists are in-charge of the ICU, I thought of spreading awareness about all these methods after retirement so that I could contribute to my country. Therefore, I took the initiative to make the public aware of the life-saving systems,” she said.
“The honour I am getting today is the result of everyone’s combined efforts,” she said.
She thanked her family for supporting her in this process, and also thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah for the award.