Officers of the Fire and Ambulance Department participated in a 10-day trauma and resuscitation training that lasted from June 19-30 in Roseau. The training was facilitated by Global Emergency Medical Strengthening (GEMS), a Germany-based NGO that trains people in emergency medical care.
After the 10-day training, fire instructors that went through the programme will also organize a two-day event to demonstrate their acquired skills by training other fire and ambulance officers. Instructors that attended the GEMS training were tutored on how to stop severe bleeding in accident victims, administer CPR to adults and children, as well as to newborn babies and cadiac arrest patients.
Leading firefighter in the St. Lucia Fire Service and co-director of Global EMS, Ireneus Henry, said the training programme was adaptable to the needs of people in St. Lucia, Dominica, and other Caribbean countries.
“The programme is not a hand-me-down programme; but it is a collaboration where the training can be adapted to the culture, the equipment, and Dominican lifestyle,” he said. “Although the principles remain the same, there are certain things about the training that we have to adapt to Dominica.”
GEMS lead instructor, Dr. Joachim Unger, said a lot of lives will be saved with the competence of fire instructors who attend to accident victims, unresponsive newborns, cardiac arrest patients, and other people that require emergency medical attention. He added that most people die because of the trauma and bleeding associated with fatal motor accidents, but fire instructors can manage these before patients arrive to hospitals for further care.
Deputy Chief of Fire, Wayne Letang, revealed that 45 vehicular accidents that required the intervention of firefighters had been recorded in Dominica this year (it was 115 in 2022), and that the GEMS training will further equip officers on their fire and ambulatory services.
“That training is very useful to the Dominica Fire and Ambulance Services as it upgrades; or we could say, better the work that we do in our ambulance and emergency response in relations to trauma and medical response,” Letang stated. “This program actually helps us carry out our duties better and the increase in motto-vehicular accidents is one of the data’s that has driven towards this type of program that we have.”
This article is copyright © 2023 DOM767
