EMS responded to over 1000 calls since launching

Apr 06, 2017 News

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-play key role in helping to combat maternal and neonatal mortality

Since being officially launched in November of last year, the National Emergency Medical Services (EMS) programme has been playing an especially crucial role in the public health sector.

According to Medical Director, Dr. Zulfikar Bux, since its official introduction, the EMS programme has seen Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) responding to in excess of 1,000 calls. Persons have been able to access the EMS programme, which responds to both medical and fire emergencies, by dialling 912.
“We started with three ambulances that cover the Mon Repos to Diamond area and from then to present we would have had 1,076 emergency calls that we would have had to respond to. If you look at it, by just having three ambulances there was an average of eight to 10 calls per day and these were all for emergencies,” said Dr. Bux.
Recounting some high points of the programme thus far, Dr. Bux said that the EMTs were able to respond to the call of a woman who was advanced in labour.
“She could not have obviously been brought to the hospital because she was in the end stage of labour,” said Dr. Bux who noted that EMTs from a batch trained last year, along with the support of the Chief EMT, Mr. Ron Morris, were able to deliver the baby on the scene.
This, according to Dr. Bux, essentially sees the EMS programme helping to reduce maternal and child mortality by responding to such cases. In fact, since a pilot of the programme commenced in 2014, Dr. Bux said that “we would save the lives of four babies and three mothers…so all cases were either delivered on scene or in the ambulance. There were countless patients who were having heart attacks, were in motor vehicle accidents, whose lives would have been saved because of this new venture…that shows the importance of EMS to the people of Guyana,” asserted the Medical Director.
For this reason, Dr. Bux added, “I must say kudos to the EMTs for the work they have been doing. I am very, very happy with the way they have been progressing.”
The EMS programme was first piloted in 2014 after gaining approval from the Ministry of Public Health in collaboration with the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC). Since Dr. Bux holds the position of Head of Accident and Emergency at the GPHC, the programme automatically fell under his purview. In fact, the programme is considered Dr. Bux’s brainchild.
“We collaborated with the Vanderbilt Medical Centre [United States], which has been a very important partner in this development and would have given us quite a lot of the ‘know how’ to ensure that we stayed within international standards when it comes to emergency medical services,” Dr. Bux explained. He revealed that between the period 2014 and 2015 “we would have done that pilot emergency medical service with two ambulances and 20 EMTs and we were able to troubleshoot quite a lot of mechanisms.”
But according to Dr. Bux, he simply was not satisfied with the progress made. This was in light of the fact that “the whole idea was to have a national emergency medical service.” This essentially saw Dr. Bux forging relations with Chief Fire Officer, Mr. Marlon Gentle. The two were able to secure the support of the Ministries of Public Health and Public Security, and the respective Ministers were able to effectively sell the programme to Cabinet which granted its ‘no objection’ in March of 2016, allowing it to be launched later the same year.
While the programme has a fire response component, Dr. Bux noted that the medical aspect of it requires that patients receive medical attention within the ‘golden hour’. The ‘golden hour’ in medicine, Dr. Bux explained, means that patients who are in trauma are able to gain the support of an emergency physician who can resuscitate them within an hour of their emergency. According to Dr. Bux, “studies have proven that this has helped to impact and save the lives of many people.”
Although the initial move was to train first responders, including members of the Guyana Police Force, Dr. Bux noted that there was a glaring need for an EMS system in order to have in place a service that is on par with international standard, a notion that the current system subscribes to.
Dr. Bux’s comments on the EMS system were forthcoming yesterday as he addressed a ceremony to graduate a batch of 31 new EMTs at the Project Dawn, Liliendaal, Greater Georgetown facility. Last year a total of 90 EMTs were trained to be a part of the programme and according to Dr. Bux, it is expected that within five years, the entire nation will be able to benefit from the EMS programme.

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