The Ministry of Health & Social Services announced this week that four nurses successfully completed training in Basic Life Support (BLS) and Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS). These nurses were trained at the American University of Antigua over a two day period (Feb 11th – 12th). The certification lasts for two years.
The four nurses are Brenda Daley, Cherize Fenton, Donique Layne, and Nneka Allicock.
Advanced Cardiac Life Support, also known as ACLS, is a protocol for managing patients who encounter severe medical emergencies such as cardiac arrest. The ACLS certification course teaches the participants how to diagnose and administer care for an adult victim of cardiac and respiratory arrest as well as any other emergencies.
The Advanced Cardiac Life Support training course has been designed for healthcare professionals who are involved in cardiovascular emergencies. This comprises of personnel in critical care units, intensive care units, emergency medicine departments, and emergency response units. In the Montserrat context, this would involve personnel working in the Casualty department, the Male, Female and Obstetric wards and the Community Health centres. ACLS training emphasizes the importance of basic life support CPR to patient survival, integration of effective basic life support with advanced cardiovascular life support interventions and the importance of effective team interaction and communication during resuscitation. It focuses on the stabilization of a patient before and after an emergency.
At the core of the ACLS technique is a fast and easy understanding of the diagnostic system that comprises a number of flow charts. This system gives an emergency responder the ability to quickly perform a number of basic tests on a patient that allows the diagnosis to travel along the flow chart until the most likely scenario for the emergency has been reached. In situations where the cause of a life-threatening event is rare or not obvious, this system can give medical personnel guidance in the steps that might be required to stabilize the patient. A person who goes through the ACLS training will be also be taught a number of pharmacological treatments that can be used in the case of an emergency.
As a result, participants of both the ACLS and BLS training usually feel more confident in recognizing and treating emergencies.
It is hoped that all medical staff will eventually be certified in this training and an ongoing cycle of training will be engrained into our system.
This training exercise forms part of the Ministry’s mandate to improve healthcare on the island and boost the confidence of the residents on island of the healthcare system.
The Ministry of Health and Social Services would like to congratulate these nurses for their hard work and continued dedication to providing quality healthcare on island.
