N/A Hospital benefit from Vanderbilt University training

Jun 13, 2013 News

A five- member team comprising doctors and nurses of the Vanderbilt University out of Nashville, Tennessee conducted two days of training on triage services at the New Amsterdam Hospital.
Vanderbilt is a private research university located in Nashville, Tennessee, United States and it was founded in 1873.
The training was done in collaboration with the University, Ministry of Health, Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation, Berbice Regional Health Authority (BRHA) and New Amsterdam Hospital.

The nurses and doctors with their certificates after the training on Sunday (Vanderbilt team and BRHA staff in back row)

Triage is a process for sorting injured people into groups based on their need for or likely benefit from immediate medical treatment. Triage is used in hospital emergency rooms. There have been many complaints from persons visiting hospitals in Guyana, including New Amsterdam, of having to wait for long periods with serious illnesses before being seen by the doctor or nurse.
At the end of the training on Sunday, the participants were evaluated through a test and presented with Certificates of Participation from the University. The team from Vanderbilt consisted of Dr. John Paul Rhode, Medical Director of the Emergency Room at Vanderbilt Medical Centre; Nurse Morgan Woodard, Nurse Manager, Vanderbilt E.R. and Course Director; Dr. Nitin Agrawal, Emergency Resident at Vanderbilt; Nurse Sally Dye, E.R. Nurse at Vanderbilt; and Dr. Amanda Williams, Internal Fellow at George Washington Hospital.
Course Director was Guyana’s, Dr. Zulfikar Bux, Senior Emergency Resident, GPHC.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the BRHA, Vishwa Mahadeo, thanked the team, who also spent their own finances to get to Guyana. Region Six is always “raising the bar” in healthcare delivery in the country.
“We are also empowering the public and telling them that they have a right to demand more,” he stated. Last year, there were 561 complaints related to healthcare in the region and “all were investigated.”
Most of the complaints stemmed from services being offered by the Accident and Emergency (A&E) section as well as the outpatient sections.  “Triage has been one of our sore areas and because of triage, a lot of blame and anger, quarrels and fighting and four letter words were thrown about.”
“It is unusual to find people who are going to hop on a plane to go to another country with no compensation for that, other than feeling good at what you are going to do and to spend two days doing lectures, you got rains, mosquitoes, the food is strange…I think that is very, very special”, and he extended thanks to the team. He extended another invitation to the team to visit again and visit the Berbice River and Corentyne River communities of Baracara, Orealla and Spiratua where they can visit Guyanese there and conduct similar training of healthcare staff.
Doctor-in-Charge of the N.A Hospital E.R., Dr. Bux stated that part of what makes an effective and operational emergency room is to make use of what equipment you have. He also recommended a re- structuring of the N/A Hospital E.R. “and training like this- we need to organize the room properly…that room has a lot of potential and it is not going to cost a lot to make changes.”
Dr. Rhohe said, “The course was a success—the pass rate of the students, very commendable.”