Local doctors and nurses learn advanced CPR for kids
Medical care in Belize has undergone tremendous transformation, but as we found out this afternoon, some of the doctors and nurses in the country are continuously striving to improve their skills so as to serve the public with the latest methods in medicine.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
Resuscitation courses aren?t new to Belize, but this week?s session is one of a kind, as for the first time the training will be recognised and certified by the American Heart Association.
Dr. Egbert Grinage, Paediatrician
?A lot of times when people come to Belize they give us easy courses or courses that are not really recognised, but this course is as it would have been held in the United States for example.?
The course is intense and the participants are mainly medical professionals who already have some knowledge in basic life-saving skills. These doctors, nurses, and emergency technicians will not only strengthening their skills but will also certify in Paediatric Advanced Life Support and Advanced Cardiac Life Support.
Dr. Egbert Grinage
?C.P.R. is as you know the basic skill to save somebody who has a heart attack or some life threatening problem in the field, like choking. And you don?t need to me to tell you that as many of our medical practitioners as we can train in this skill the better it is for Belize.?
The course was organized by Friends of Paediatrics, a non?governmental organisation founded in 1998 to give children whose families cannot afford the medical care access to treatment at home and abroad. Today, however F.O.P. has shifted its focus somewhat by concentrating its efforts in improving tertiary care in Belize for its youngest patients.
Dr. Egbert Grinage
?As you know, Friends of Paediatrics, our thing use to be sending out individual kids and we have diversified from that to teaching courses such as these which are required in our health care sector, to giving equipment to Karl Heusner to the extent that the sixty percent of children with respiratory failure can now be saved, to still sending a few children out with life threatening disorders, but on a whole trying to build the infrastructure here in Belize to make what we do more sustainable in the long run.?
Reporting for News Five, Jacqueline Woods.
Of the one hundred participants expected to receive certificates in C.P.R., sixteen of them will also be certified in Paediatric Advanced Life Support and Advanced Cardiac Life Support. The course is being conducted by a seven-member team from Covenant Healthcare of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It concludes on Friday with the certification ceremony.
