Physicians, Nurses and Emergency Medical Technicians, serving with the Health Authority of Anguilla, have just undergone a short, but vigorous, course which can help them save the lives of persons suffering from cardiac arrest commonly referred to as heart attack.

Medical and Health personnel in Anguilla and trainers from Trinidad

The basic and advanced life support training programme, a component of the American Heart Association, was delivered by four trainers from the Emergency Training Institute of Trinidad and Tobago. They were the Institute’s Medical Director, Dr. Jennifer Delamore, Para-medics Brent Murphy and Karla Reid and the International Relations Director, Curt Pierre. The course was held at two venues: at the Training Room of the National Bank of Anguilla on September 16 and the Conference Room at the Princess Alexandra Hospital on September 17 and 18.

“Once medical personnel are able to provide appropriate care for persons who have cardiac emergencies, it definitely impacts on the outcome of patients,” Curt Pierre said. “There is something called the ‘chain of survival’ in cardiac care where, if you are able to recognise that an emergency is occurring and start providing basic and advanced care as soon as possible, the survivability of cardiac patients is tremendously increased.”

Medical and Health personnel in Anguilla and trainers from Trinidad

A number of mannequins were used as training aids, giving the medical personnel a practical sense of dealing with the upper torso of a heart patient. Several pieces of life-supporting equipment and other tools were used to stimulate the training exercises.
Speaking about his organisation, Mr. Pierre said: “Our company was basically set up to provide both out of hospital training for persons who work on ambulances, in the offshore environment and other outside establishments, but it also provides specific training for doctors and nurses within a hospital environment. The advanced cardiac life support is just one of many other programmes we offer in collaboration with various organisations. This programme is also being done in association with Craton University in Nebraska and they are providing extremely helpful resources in terms of assisting our training institution in delivering a number of programmes.”

Doctors in Anguilla being trained by Trinidadian personnel at the Princess Alexandra Hospital

He said his institute was also helping other organisations to develop their own local training resources and was grateful to the Health Authority for the opportunity to be of assistance to the health services in Anguilla.
Karla Reid conducted the advanced cardiac life support course for doctors with the assistance of her colleague, Dr. Dalamore. She explained that the training she delivered was about techniques involving intravenous treatment and medications to get a patient from cardiac arrest back to a rhythm that is sustainable for life.

According to Ms Reid, while the training she dealt with was attended by all doctors, the course is usually designed for paramedics, nurses and EMTs as well, because all of them work as a team in the health services.

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