Capacity Building

Training

The team treated diseases, performed surgeries and built the capacity of health professionals. Trainings were focused on critical care certification, and lecture series on neonatal, pediatrics, family medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, regional anesthesia and ultrasound-ultrafast screening training and practices, for medical professionals, residents, and Public Health students.

An introduction to BASIC DHS (Basic Assessment and Support in Intensive Care for Developing Healthcare Systems) for health professionals.

The BASIC and BASIC DHS for doctors course was developed by the BASIC Collaboration and Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).

The aim of this certified course is to improve the care of critically ill patients in developing healthcare systems. BASIC Collaboration courses have been held in over 55 countries and approximately 10,000 healthcare workers are taught each year.

Trainers: Kate Rotheray Trainer and Course Coordinator at BASIC DHS. Emergency Medicine and Intensive Care doctor. Health Authority Hong Kong and Vernie Theodore Barnett, M.D., M.A. Intensivist, Associate Professor of Internal Medicine, Univ. of Central Florida College of Medicine.

Topics included: Assessment of critically ill adult and child; Respiratory physiology and failure; Cardiovascular physiology and shock; Neurological emergencies; Metabolic emergencies Infection control Pain management Sepsis Fluids Oliguria and acute renal failure Burns Obstetric emergencies Trauma.

Nurses Skills: Airway management; Ambubag use; Suctioning; Oxygen delivery; Chest drain management; Monitoring of patients with shock, burns, post-op; AVPU Glucose monitoring pain assessment and morphine administration; Intraosseous insertion; Blood transfusion; Care of patient on bed rest; Handover; Safe hygiene

Doctor Skills: Airway management; Ambubag use; Chest drain insertion; Hand hygiene; Intraosseous access; Epinephrine infusion; Handover (SBAR)

1. Training of healthcare providers in Pre-Hospital Trauma Life Support (Trainers: Team Rubicon personnel)

Trained - approximately 100 Community Health Officers and approximately 50 Nurses in the foundations of Pre-Hospital Trauma Life Support (PHTLS) at Njala University in Bo.

The courses lasted on average 4 hours and included both didactic and practical components, following the attached curriculum. This training is especially useful and necessary for Community Healthcare Workers (CHW), Community Healthcare Officers (CHO), and Community Healthcare Officers Plus (CHO+) as they comprise most the healthcare workforce in Sierra Leone and work in communities, clinics, and hospitals. This sector has the highest potential of impacting outcomes in healthcare because of their direct involvement in emergent and primary care.

2. Skills Exchange, Health assessment and treatment at remote clinics:

Team Rubicon personnel assisted in the assessment and delivery of primary healthcare at an advanced level in three different remote clinics in Bo, in conjunction with House Officers in training, CHWs, CHOs, Pharmacists and Physicians. The primary purposes of the clinics were to both provide primary point of contact healthcare for underserved communities, and to identify and refer specific surgical cases to local hospitals where collaborators provided urgently necessary surgeries and surgical interventions for non-urgent specialty cases.

These clinics, in sum, triaged and provided healthcare to approximately 2059 people in 10 days, from the Districts of Bo, Freetown, Jui, Makeni, Pujehun, Kono, Kenema and others. From clinic referrals, program collaborators successfully performed 187 surgeries on a variety of urgent and specialty cases at local hospitals. Prevalent nonurgent themes included treatment of infectious diseases, headaches and joint pain, and prevalent surgical cases included predominantly hernias that had not been repaired because of a lack of specialty surgical resources.

3. Training Infection Prevention and Control Training at Njala University (Trainers: Dr. Koso-Thomas (USA SL Diaspora), RN Sarah Cundy (International Medical Corps, SL program) Location: Njala University, Kowama Campus, Bo

Trainees: Approximately 50 Nursing Students Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) Training, using a curriculum that is line with the Sierra Leone Ministry of Health and Sanitation National Infection Prevention and Control Guidelines (put together by CDC, SL MoH, IMC), to approximately 50 nursing students from Njala University.

The Course Outline:

• Introduction - Vital part of patient and healthcare worker safety - Strengthening IPC key part of containing EVD outbreak - IPC key area for improvement - Rebuild confidence in community - Implementation challenges

• Health Care Associated Infection and Infection Prevention and Control

• Standard Precautions: Standard precautions represent the minimum infection prevention measures that apply to all patient care in any setting where healthcare is delivered. Standard precautions are based on the principle that all blood, body fluids, excretions, non-intact skin, and mucous membranes may contain transmissible pathogens. These evidence based practices are to protect HCWs and prevent the spread of infections among patients. Standard Precautions cover – Hand Hygiene, PPE, Respiratory Hygiene, Safe Sharps management, decontamination, Waste management.

• Transmission-based precautions; Departmental specific IPC; Occupational health; Screening triage and isolation; Practical /Demonstration sessions ; General recap of IPC