Georgetown: Having completed an intense five-day training programme aimed at helping them to master skills in emergency medicine care making them capable enough to teach others, 25 health workers were each certified yesterday as trainer of trainers, 16 of whom were drawn from the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC). The others were drawn from private hospitals in the city including Dr. Balwant Singh’s Hospital, the Davis Memorial Hospital, the St. Joseph Mercy Hospital and the Guyana Red Cross Society.
The Emergency Medical Technicians training course, which was conducted at Project Dawn, Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara, was facilitated by instructors recruited by the Paul Gallagher founded Global Emergency Medicine Initiative (GEMINI), a branch of Rotary International, which has as its mission to improve the quality of emergency medicine in developing countries.
The training programme is being touted as a measure to help radically improve the service delivered by first responders, particularly those tasked with providing care in the ambulance. Through the collaborative effort of the Rotary Club of Georgetown, GEMINI, the Ministry of Health and the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation, the project which was in the making some four years ago, was kicked into motion on Monday.
The teaching process was characterized by a 40-hour plus training session which lasted for eight odd hours a day, entailing both hands-on practical and theoretical assessments. In addition, sessions included assessing the teaching capabilities of the participants, Timothy Redding, an instructor, said. They were exposed to training in the areas of splinting, bandaging, bagging, suctioning, use of EMT equipment, how to approach and transport patients and the application of First Aid/CPR. “They were all, with the exception of one, given textbooks ahead of time, they were given PowerPoint lectures with numerous links of educational sites on emergency medical responder in preparation ahead of the training,” he said.
And according to Redding, all of the participants successfully completed the training session having displayed intuitiveness and immense understanding throughout the sessions.
The project was the brainchild of Rotarian and member of GEMINI, Dr. Ovid Fraser, a Guyanese by birth, who pointed out that it was designed with the view of educating staff on pre-hospital care and the value of training. Dr. Fraser was tasked with undertaking the preliminary research which served to determine to what extent training was required. He revealed that attempts to set the project in motion started about four years ago when GEMINI had visited here to explore the possibility of providing a programme in emergency medicine. “We interviewed numerous people and the Rotary Clubs and (some) in the medical profession, with the idea being for the Guyanese people to tell us what their needs were, and we would see if we had the expertise to assist.” It was on this basis and with the guidance from the Ministry of Health, a programme was fashioned for Guyana with specific need for technicians who are tasked with accompanying patients as they are transported to the hospital by ambulance. However in recognition of the fact that a one-off training would not be adequate enough to address the existing challenge a decision was made to organize the trainer of trainers programme. “We thought that what we needed to do was to train a group of people who could be the teachers of Emergency Medicine Technology (EMT) and train the ambulance staff on a permanent basis so in that way we would leave a knowledge base in Guyana.”
Although completing the programme means that they are now qualified to train others, they will still be subjected to a period of assessment which will continue in a matter of months when the overseas-based facilitating team returns to monitor their teaching capabilities.
Today’s certification ceremony saw the attendance of hospital officials, including Matron of the GPHC, Sister Audrey Corey, who revealed that the project comes at an opportune time and will serve to greatly enhance the ambulatory care service.
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