Guyana’s Emergency Medical Service – an initiative that has been helping to save lives

Jan 03, 2021 News

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Kaieteur News – Since its inception in 2016, the Guyana Fire and Emergency Medical Services (EMS) have responded to 15,630 medical emergencies via the 912 emergency hotline.

Numerous lives were saved and there has been a positive impact on pre-hospital emergency response locally, according to National EMS Director, Dr. Zulfikar Bux. While the coverage is showing its benefits in the Region Four environs, Dr. Bux, the architect behind this initiative, noted that since there are many more patients throughout the country who need this service, there is a growing need to expand in order to fill the evolving pre-hospital emergency needs of Guyana.“This service has proven its worth worldwide and helps to save so many lives and we are seeing similar effects in Guyana. We want to save more lives and answer all the calls for help but we cannot cover the entire country with a couple of ambulances. I sometimes fantasize about the day when every Guyanese can have emergency access to paramedics anywhere in Guyana by calling the emergency hotline. I am still optimistic we will get there and I’ll do all that I can to achieve this goal,” said Dr. Bux.

HOW IT BEGAN
Recalling a time when he was a young physician working in the emergency room (ER), Dr. Bux spoke of seeing accident victims coming too late because they didn’t have timely transport or were transported improperly. “I always wanted to change this and get the sick to the hospital in a timely manner while ensuring they had proper care en route,” said Dr. Bux, an Emergency Medicine Specialist.
While an ambulance service was beyond reach then, Dr. Bux was able to put a plan in place to train police officers as first responders so that they could assist with providing care when they arrived on the scene. This initiative was beneficial to some but Dr. Bux had long recognized that more was needed to ensure every Guyanese had proper access to pre-hospital emergency service. His faculty at the Vanderbilt Medical Center had similar ideas for Guyana and, in 2012; they decided to put the idea to paper and came up with a model that was tailored to Guyana. Over the next couple of years, Dr. Bux was unrelenting in his drive to get a system up and running. He finally had a breakthrough in 2014 when approval was granted for a pilot model to be initiated through the Accident and Emergency department of the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC). The model was wildly successful and gave Dr. Bux the evidence that was needed to initiate a more sustainable, national model. After many attempts, Dr. Bux finally found an ally in the Guyana Fire Service.
Mr. Marlon Gentle, the head of the Fire Service, understood the need for such a service and readily teamed up with Dr. Bux when he proposed that the two entities collaborate to form a national service. The EMS was birthed in November 2016.

ACHIEVEMENTS
Since then, Dr. Bux revealed, over 100 Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) were trained as well as nine emergency medical responders, 32 emergency medical dispatchers, 618 police officers, 48 CANU officers, 21 surveyors from the Lands and Survey, 115 firefighters, 165 GWI staffers and 24 workers from the MMA/ADA. Also, over 15,000 medical emergencies were attended to by the EMTs including the delivery of 17 babies en route to hospital and four patients who stopped breathing were resuscitated by the EMTs en route to hospital, according to Dr. Bux. “We did this with minimal resources and in challenging circumstances. I cannot begin to thank my hardworking team for sticking it out and doing what we had to do to save lives in challenging conditions,” an appreciative Dr. Bux added.
The work done by Dr. Bux and his team has not gone unnoticed on the international scene. He was invited to the World EMS expo where he and colleagues from the Vanderbilt Medical Center were asked to present the EMS model that created Guyana so that others can benefit from such innovations in medicine. He was also invited to EMS agencies in Vermont and Tennessee where similar presentations were done for EMS leaders in those states.
Dr. Bux is currently collaborating with partners from the Vanderbilt Medical Center to support the development of a similar initiative in Grenada which has reached out to him for support in this field.

CHALLENGES
“It’s never easy forming a new system, much less one in a resource challenged setting,” Dr. Bux shared, as he added, “we need ambulances and infrastructure development as we expand the service. We need members of the public to stop harassing the EMTs and give them space to do their work. Many countries celebrate their EMTs and we need to do the same and encourage these young professionals who are venturing into unknown and sometimes dangerous environments to save a life.”
“There are times,” he added, “we cannot respond to calls because it’s too far away or we are occupied with other emergencies. We want to be able to do those, calls but if we try to cover the entire country with a couple of ambulances, we will not be as efficient or effective and the system will be grounded to a halt in no time.”
Dr. Bux is hopeful that there will be continued and even bolstered support this year for the EMS initiative. “We ask that everyone come on board and support us as we drive this process forward and help save so many who can be saved. The pandemic has slowed us down tremendously but we are looking forward to moving ahead once the situation becomes more favourable,” he added.

WHAT LIES AHEAD
Moving forward, Dr. Bux said that there is currently a plan to cover the road population in phases. The hope, he said, is to have roa

d coverage with ambulances, on a national scale, in order to respond to medical emergency calls. “There are obviously places in the hinterland where air and water ambulances are more effective and that process needs a more collaborative effort, but we have the technical know-how to support such a system,” said Dr. Bux.
The EMS Director is optimistic that “we can expand the ambulance coverage across Region Four and into Regions Three and Five within the next year or so. We can then address the other regions in similar phases until there is national coverage.”

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