OLORUNDARE ENIMOLA, Lagos
District 9110 of Rotary Club in partnership with the Association of Nigerian Physicians in the Americas ANPA, has trained over 100 first responders to accident and crash victims on how to clinically stop bleeding which has been identified as the leading cause of deaths from these incidents.
The training which took place on Friday at the Ace Medicare Clinics, Ota, Ogun State, had a large turnout of Officers of the Federal Road Safety Corps FRSC, Ogun State Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Corps, TRACE, the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority LASTMA, Ambulance Operators, Medical officials who are the statutory first responders to accident and crash cases.
Rotarian Dr. Wole Kukoyi, a Rotary Governor nominee and the Medical Director of Ace Medicare Clinics, Ota, who spoke exclusively to DAILY INDEPENDENT, explained that the purpose of the training programme, “We want to prevent death or unnecessary deaths. We do know that the greatest cause of death in accidents for instance, is bleeding. So if we’re able to erase bleeding or minimise it, we will have gone a long way to prevent unnecessary deaths which is the purpose for the training.”
Dr. Kukoyi further explained that aside Medical, Health and the first responders to bleeding victims, many others from all works of life both from Lagos and Ogun States were invited to be part of the training so the result and impact of the training can be far reaching, cascading it to lowest rung of the society.
He said, “We have workers in hospitals and people from different walks of life, it’s not only health professionals that can prevent bleeding which is part of the message. Anybody at the point of accidents or hemorrhage can actually assist once they have the background information provided in the training.”
Dr. Kukoyi revealed that the training was a partnership between District 9110 of the Rotary Club and the Association of Nigeria Physicians in the Americas ANPA who came to the country with physicians in different Medical fields to train on what is called ‘stop the bleed’, and the Ace Medicare Clinics has been accredited by the association to offer such training from time to time to enhance the sustainability of the training programme.
Dr. Chinyere Anyaogu, the President of the Association of Nigeria Physicians in the Americas ANPA who led the medical delegates from the U.S explained to DAILY INDEPENDENT that the ‘Stop the bleed’ is actually an evidence based programme that was initiated after the 2011/2012 Sandy Hook disaster in the United States where there was a mass shooting, with revelations afterwards that, had people been able to address acute hemorrhage, some lives would have been saved from the mass shooting that took the lives of a lot of young children and young adults.
Anyaogu noted that after the discoveries on acute blood loss, “The Department of Defense in conjunction with the American College of Surgeons, created this programme where you can teach anyone, it doesn’t matter if they’re medical or non medical, from any walk of life, lay men, lay people, and first responders are taught the tenants to address sudden, uncontrollable hemorrhage, because bleeding is one of the commonest preventable causes of death.”
According to her, they had intention of training about 50 people but were delighted to have over 100 trainees, who demonstrated competence in a test conducted after the training session, she stated, “Our target was to train 50 people however, we overshot the target by 100% and we have about 100 people trained and every single one of them have shown competency to be eligible to become instructors. And our goal is that these instructors will then now train other people and get the training moved along in their various circles of influence.”
She also affirmed, “Each trainee is eligible for certification as an instructor. For them to achieve a certification. They have to go online now and complete the online portion and get and generate an online number. And then with that number then we submit their certification and they are approved by American College of Surgeons.”
Many of the participants were given a bag which Dr. Anyaogu said contained, “The contained a torniquet, hemorrhage tools, bandage, the shears, and gloves for them to be able to use in case they’re in a situation where they need to attend to a bleeding victim.”
CDR. Ajibade A. A, the Area Commander, TRACE, Ogun West, who led a crop of selected officers from his Agency spoke about the training on behalf of CDR. Seni Ogunyemi, the TRACE Commander/CEO, stating that it is apt and a welcomed development that will further equip his men as first responders to crash victims.
He said, “The TRACE Commander is delighted with the training, prompting him to readily deploy key officers of the Agency to the training, who will also be internally deployed to share the knowledge garnered with their colleagues, especially with those on field operations.”
Many of the participants who spoke exclusively to me also acknowledged the rich content of the training, expressing satisfaction and their readiness to spread the message.
