Basseterre, St. Kitts and Nevis, October 31, 2022: Medical professionals at the Joseph N. France General Hospital, Pogson, and Mary Charles Hospitals, will be undergoing a series of training conducted by CPR Solutions, a national training center for the American Heart Association.
CPR Solutions has an extensive network of certified instructors from across the United States, who offer a comprehensive range of CPR training classes for medical professionals and other healthcare workers.
The training will be facilitated as a collaborative effort between Ross University, coordinated by Dr. Al Pierre, and the Ministry of Health. It is scheduled to take place from Wednesday 3rd November to Monday 7th November 2022.
Approximately two hundred (200) health care workers, which includes 50 medical doctors, will be trained in Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS), Basic Life Support (BLS) and Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS).
According to Dr. Jenson Morton, Director of Health Institutions, this is in keeping with the Prime Minister, Hon. Dr. Terrance Drew’s pledge to improve the quality of health care throughout the Federation.
“It is being done in an effort to improve the quality of health care that is being delivered by the staff of not just the JNF General Hospital but the staff in the Ministry of Health in general. The goal is to ensure that these staff members get certified in BLS/ACLS/PALS and they renew this certification every two years. All of this is a part of our attempt to get our medical institutions properly accredited. “
For the JNF General Hospital to gain accreditation, members of staff must be fully trained and up to standard with their ability to offer basic life support, advanced cardiac life support, and pediatric life support.
Basic Life Support training ensures that participants can promptly recognize several life-threatening emergencies, give high-quality chest compressions, deliver appropriate ventilations, and provide early use of an Automated External Defibrillator (AED).
Pediatric Life Support is geared towards healthcare providers who respond to emergencies in infants and children, and for personnel in emergency response, emergency medicine, intensive care and critical care units.
Advanced Cardiac Life Support is a set of life-saving protocols and skills that extend beyond Basic Life Support (BLS) used to provide urgent treatment to cardiac emergencies such as cardiac arrest, stroke, myocardial infarction, and other conditions.
Dr. Morton stated that this training is only one of the many efforts being implemented to improve the quality of health care throughout the nation.
There are several other initiatives that will be undertaken by the Ministry of Health in the upcoming months including Customer Service Training and other specialization training for the nurses.
The Ministry of Health is also expected “to revamp its entire financial scheme and system, a part of which includes the National Health Insurance scheme. Other changes include the transformation of the administrative structure of the hospital, the outfitting of the peripheral hospitals, [Pogson and Mary Charles] with permanent medical staff as well as other improvements including small laboratories and small Xray facilities which will come onstream bit by bit”.
The Cabinet of Ministers has already begun discussions on the National Health Insurance preliminary report with the aim of making it a reality for the Citizens of the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis. A comprehensive document was presented by the Minister responsible, The Honourable Dr. Geoffrey Hanley, outlining the work done and action plan to date. The presentation included the National Commission on Universal Health Care Plan of Action, financing options for the Introduction of the National Health Care to the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis, and the draft Legislation of the National Health Insurance Act.
