GPHA nurses end emergency and critical care training

Nurses from the Gulf Provincial Health Authority (GPHA) can now assess and treat patients efficiently based on the severity of their illness following a two-week Emergency and Critical Care Training that ended in Kerema last week.

The training introduced and implemented the Interagency Integrated Triage Tool (ITT) system at the hospital. Through the system, nurses learnt how to identify critically ill and severe trauma cases and also prioritize care.

Facilitator of the training, emergency physician Dr. Ovia Bue, said the training in Gulf differed from trainings he had run in other provinces because nurses at Kerema General lacked background knowledge on emergency cases, and the training had to be done from ground level up.

Despite that, Dr. Bue said participants showed eagerness to learn and grasped all information given to them through the training.

He said the training also helped identify exceptional nurses who can stand in to assist emergency patients in the absence of a doctor or Health Extension Officer on the ground.

Dr. Bue has requested continuous visitation by emergency physicians to Kerema to ensure the knowledge and skills gained are upkept.

Participant Representative Wanpis Epeol said for the last years, Kerema General Hospital has not had an emergency department and has seen patients as they come.

Epeol said because there are no urban clinics in Kerema, the General Hospital has become the urban clinic, which has removed the focus of emergency care.

He said for many years no trainings have been given to emergency nurses on how to care for severely ill patients until now, when training was given by emergency doctors.

"With the triage system in place, we can now assess the patients efficiently and attend to those that need urgent attention," Mr Epeol said.

He also called for the same training to be extended to health workers at the rural health stations.