EMS - a success story laced with some daunting challenges -Director appeals for public support to keep service going

EMS – a success story laced with some daunting challenges —Director appeals for public support to keep service going

Jun 14, 2019 News

Since kicking into motion in November 2016, the national Emergency Medical Service [EMS], headed by Dr. Zulfikar Bux, has responded to close to 9,000 medical emergencies, provided this number is not surpassed by the time of publication.

EMS Director, Dr. Zulfikar Bux

These, however, are enough cases to indicate that the service which has seen many persons with life threatening conditions being stabilised enough to be rushed to Georgetown Public Hospital, where they are afforded advanced life-saving medical attention.
“This service has essentially been helping to save lives,” said Dr. Bux who disclosed that trained Emergency Medical Technicians [EMTs] who are dispatched aboard ambulances are tasked with providing basic medical care and are supported en route [via cell phones] by GPHC specialists when the need arises.
The gamut of cases that the EMS system has catered to since becoming operational range from heart attacks to difficult pregnancies. In fact, according to Dr. Bux, about four deliveries, all successful, were carried out by EMTs en route to hospital.
But even with all of the success the initiative has racked up in the few years it has been in existence, there have been some daunting response and the EMTs have felt the brunt of these, said the national EMS Director.
He was at the time making reference to the fact that a number of EMTs have been the subject of physical assaults and verbal abuse while trying to carry out their duties in the public domain. According to the EMS Director, “What we have found, when there are big accidents and these guys [EMTs] have to go to the scene, some people are not always accommodating and this might be because our EMTs are young people…we have given them a job but they are not the best in the world but they know what they are doing and people need to understand this.”
Although they are trained to carry out basic medical responses, Dr. Bux noted that EMTs have however been lacking conflict resolution skills, a state of affairs that he is currently working to resolve.
“When there is an accident for instance there are usually a lot of people on the scene and many of them suddenly become medical experts and want to tell the EMTs what they should or shouldn’t do.
“Many people verbally abuse them as if they are not doing their work properly. But the public needs to understand that these people are trained to do what they are doing,” reiterated the EMS Director.
In addition to instructing the EMTs, Dr. Bux said that “many people take out their smart phones and start videoing them and that puts additional pressure on them to do their work…anybody for that matter, even well experienced medical professionals with years of service, it is very difficult for them to focus on patient care with all that pressure.”
Compounding the dilemma faced by EMTs, is the fact that they have even been subjected to physical assaults, Dr. Bux said. He revealed that not so long ago this was the case when an ambulance arrived at a scene where a number of irate residents had gathered.
Upon arrival, this publication was told that residents started to hit the ambulance and proceeded to do the same to the female EMT who exited the vehicle.
“Our population is getting more and more aggressive and I don’t know if it is because of alcohol or drug use but this is being reflected even in the cases that are coming to us…there is an increasing number of violence-related injuries and medical conditions that we are seeing. People are harming the very medical personnel who are coming to give them assistance and we need this to stop if the EMS system is to continue being effective,” said Dr. Bux.
He shared his belief that the aggression on some occasions might be linked to the delayed arrival of ambulances but attributed this to the time wasted trying to follow directions which may not always be precise.
“We don’t have any GPS system to use to find a particular address, so it’s just the verbal directions that that the EMTs have to follow in order to respond to emergencies,” Dr. Bux explained.
In voicing an appeal for people to be more cooperative, Dr. Bux said, “Members of the public must at least try to understand that we are doing our best and therefore they should not put additional pressure on our EMTs who are already working under pressure to help stabilise patients in order to help save their lives and keep the service going.”
Members of the public can access the emergency system by dialling 912 which also doubles as the national fire response number. In fact the EMS service is a strategic collaboration between the Ministry of Public Health and the Guyana Fire Service and is poised for expansion to the East Coast and East Bank and the West Coast of Berbice by year end a move, Dr. Bux is confident will help to save even more lives.