Emergency workers ready for the worst
As I speak there is a ceremony taking place at U.B. featuring graduates of a course for emergency medical technicians. While I couldn’t be in two places at once, News 5’s Jacqueline Woods spent time with some of the nation’s emergency medical workers and gained a new respect for what the new graduates will be doing.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
The Belize Emergency Response Team is usually the first medical
service to arrive at the scene of an accident or trauma. The ambulance travels at high speed to respond in as little time as possible to save a human life.
Yvette Burks, National Co-ordinator, BERT
“Please don’t be afraid to call for us at any stage. As long as we are here, please don’t just pick up somebody within city limits. We are about three to five minutes away generally, maybe a little bit more, if you are away on the other side of town. It seems like forever when you are at the scene of an emergency, but I would like to remind people you can do more damage by moving a patient than by just waiting for the ambulance.”
Since 1998, BERT has been providing the emergency service, on most occasions, at no cost to the public. Today, the ambulance service has a fleet of seven working units and a staff of thirteen medical technicians including an equal number of volunteers.
The Emergency Medical Technicians are certified to respond to any kind of crisis. As the ambulance speeds to the hospital, inside the vehicle, the E.M.T. is busy taking care of the patient and getting the vital information that will help prepare medical personnel at the hospital.
In 2001, BERT responded to three thousand, four hundred and seventy-one calls. According to National Co-ordinator, Yvette Burks, this is one of the busiest times of the year.
Every year, E.M.T.’s must attend a refresher course. The training improves the technician’s ability to provide care and comfort right up until the time the patient is received at the hospital.
Yvette Burks
“The idea being that unless they are using certain techniques or certain skills, it is important for them to go over these. And even the ones that we are using and to even brush up and remember what is the correct way to do things, and it is an opportunity for them to share. Now we have also established pre-requisites, that even after a refresher course they also have to have done X amount of clinical hours to qualify for a license.”
Presently, BERT is working to improve its response time, but Burks admits that because the country does not have a centralised dispatch number, it has created delays with their service.
Yvette Burks
“Our 911 in Belize goes directly to the Police Department. We have done a lot of P.R. work with the police, as you know we are on the same team, and now they have gotten a lot better with calling us immediately after they have received a call. But from time to time there is still a glitch in that system. So unfortunately sometimes we are delayed behind them in as much as ten, even fifteen minutes because of simply not having receive the call.”
In the case of an emergency, BERT advises the public to call 90 or 33292. Today, BERT is the only ambulance service that provides care in the city and Belize District. However, the goal is to establish satellite units throughout the country to make the service available countrywide. Jacqueline Woods reporting for News 5.
Besides operating in the Belize City area, BERT also has a crew stationed in Spanish Lookout in the Cayo District.
