|
|
Heartline Magazine April - June 2003
ECC Training Overseas
The Heart Foundation of Barbados (HFOB) is reaching out to
the region with well organized training programmes in Emergency Cardiac Care (ECC).
Dr. Brian Charles, head of the Accident & Emergency
Department of the Q.E.H. and Programme Director of the ECC Programme at the
HFOB, is responsible for facilitating and organizing the courses. Noting that
cardiovascular diseases were the number one killer in the region, Dr. Charles
observed that "our aim is to try to reduce the incidence of cardiovascular
disease throughout the region, and to this end we have set on a programme of
training overseas."
In 2000 the American Heart Association and the
Inter-American Heart Foundation sanctioned the Heart Foundation of
Barbados to
teach and certify ECC courses in Latin America and the Caribbean.
In April this year Dr. Charles was part of a one-week course
in Advanced Cardiac Life Support, which was conducted on behalf of the American
Heart Association (AHA) and the Inter-American Heart Association (IAHA) in
Guyana, The course was conducted by 14 physicians and 9 nurses from Vanderbilt
University in the U.S. and they performed training in the emergency room,
clinics, and other parts of the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation. 30
Guyanese, including 20 doctors benefited from the special support
demonstrations. The training in Guyana is expected to lay the foundation for the
setting up of a Cardiac Life Support training centre by the end of the year.
To date, ECC training has also been provided to Trinidad &
Tobago, Jamaica, St. Maarten, Tortola, Curacao, St. Croix, St. Lucia and Guyana.
The training courses go a long way in educating doctors in Advanced Cardiac Life
Support (ACLS) and the general public Basic Cardiac Life Support (BCLS). A
self-sustaining education programme will be the result of the training. Trainers
will be chosen from the participants of the ACLS courses to conduct further
training courses. Training sites have already been set up in St. Maarten and
Guyana and the HFOB is playing an integral part in getting the centres going.
Training is also conducted in the used of the AED, the Automated External
Defibrillator.
There is also instruction in cardiopulmonary resuscitation,
which constitutes basic cardiac life support, and advanced cardiac life support
which involves the proper use of medication and intravenous lines, as well as
advanced airway treatment and mechanisms to assist patients in breathing.
The HFOB team is generally accompanied by paramedical
officers drawn from both the Ambulance Service and the Barbados Fire Service,
whose role is to give instruction in basic cardiac life support. Dr. Charles
said that the HFOB team was proud and committed to our work and training in the
Caribbean territories.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
