NEDC train 10 doctors, other paramedics on basic emergency care

From David Kuvie Bauchi

No fewer than 10 medical doctors, nurses and other paramedics in Bauchi State have commenced a five-day Basic Emergency Care Providers Course for Emergency Healthcare Workers.

The training was organised by the North East Development Commission (NEDC) in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Health for healthcare providers in the North East sub-region.

The opening ceremony of the training was held at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Teaching Hospital (ATBU-TH) in Bauchi State on Tuesday.

Speaking during the meeting, a Consultant Urologist and Chairman Medical Advisory Council of ATBU-TH Dr Haruna Usman Liman, said the training was to enable.the beneficiaries manage patients in life threatening conditions.

Loman said that Bauchi is situated at a confluence of many major trunck roads so accidents and emergency were bound to happen.

He said it was important that the appropriate care was instituted at the right time to save many lives.

“It is a thing of joy for this hospital to be nominated to participate in this training programme because it is a tertiary centre that does not have a well developed and elaborate emergency culture definitely is a very serious problem,” he said.

Liman explained that all the stakeholders had been carefully selected to be trained for this programme and it would not stop with them because they will go back to their various units and step down the training to other staff.

“We hope in the course of time so many people within the hospital with imbibe this emergency culture and become proficient in the art of instituting emergency care when laid down protocols for interventions to save lives,” he said.

He added that the responsibility of delivering emergency care does not only rest on the shoulders of a doctor but also the person who was able to transit with the ambulance to the side of the emergency who may be the best to save lives at the point of occurrence by the time the patient is brought to the hospital where elaborate investigation and treatment can be instituted other health workers can be involved

“ATBU teaching hospital is very grateful to the Federal Ministry of Health and North East Development Commission for taking this initiative to station this training programme in this hospital and we pray that this will continue on a sustainable basis to train and retrain our staff, build capacity and give them the opportunity to cascade this training to other facilities within the neighborhood of Bauchi in order to develop the art of cutting edge of emergency care in line with global best practice,” he added

Earlier in his remarks, A Facilitator and Mater Trainer at the exercise, Dr Ibrahim Sahabo said that the basic emergency care was designed by the World Health Organization (WHO) in collaboration with ICRC and International Federation of Emergency Medicine, the body that provides the certification for all the participants at the training.

Sahabo explained that the training is aim at equipping the frontline health workers with the requisite skills to able to rapidly assess and manage patients in life threatening conditions, adding that before now there was no any training that is particularly targeted at emergency care but the initiative was introduced to Nigeria in 2021.

“We now have a cohort of Master trainers in Nigeria and we hope by the end of this set of trainers at ATBU-TH we will be able to step down this training to other lesser cadre in the medical profession so as to improve the needed manpower this services,” Sahabo added

On his part, Representative of the State Coordinator of North East Development Commission (NEDC) in Bauchi State Abdulkadir Ibrahim Baba charged the participants to utilize the opportunity and acquired the requisite skills and step down the knowledge to achieve the desire objectives, adding that the training is going on across the six states of Borno, Yobe, Taraba, Adamawa , Gombe and Bauchi to updates the skills of health providers on basis emergency care to save more lives in the region and the country at large.