The Inaugural Emergency Care Symposium, came to an end today at Safari Park Hotel. It brought together over four hundred and twenty-seven delegates (427) from across Kenya, Uganda, Djibouti, USA, Trinidad & Tobago, Tanzania, UK and South Africa to discuss the status of emergency care.
This second day of the conference was focused on highlighting the actual situation on the ground, with a country-wide perspective. Speakers included representatives from the Ministry of Health, Kenyatta National Hospital, Kenya Council of EMTs, Kijabe Hospital and Aga Khan University Hospital.
The Keynote speaker was Professor Lee Wallis, the President of the International Federation for Emergency Medicine (IFEM), an international body founded in 1991 that aims to promote access to and lead the development of the highest quality of emergency medical care for all people.
Professor Lee said, “Our job is to save lives. It is therefore important to provide quality emergency care to all. Emergency care systems are the bedrock of good healthcare. For instance, if there was better emergency care at the scenes of traffic accidents, we could potentially save five hundred thousand lives in Africa annually.”
To save these lives, a community-based approach is the best way to ensure proper emergency care. This means that healthcare providers in the locality must be trained with customized local learning texts and examples, to enable them to meet the needs immediately, save lives, reduce the impact of injury and lower the cost of care.
There are now programs available for localized training. The Aga Khan University Hospital offers an eighteen month international standards diploma from the College of Emergency Medicine of South Africa. Additionally, Kijabe Hospital offers an eighteen month Higher Diploma in Emergency Critical care for clinical officers. The Kenyatta National Hospital offers emergency nursing training.
The symposium sponsors include NHIF, E-Plus Medical Services, Phillips, Medsurge, Optimed, AMREF Flying Doctors, and JANST Healthcare.
ENDS
For further information or queries, kindly contact Diana or Emily on emkf@emergencymedicinekenya.org
