For the last 3 years, my colleagues and I have been working hard to improve emergency care provided in Belize. This has included implementing a pediatric emergency medicine curriculum as well as pediatric triage.
Our next step is to improve emergency care provided in peripheral areas by teaching the World Health Organization's Basic Emergency Care (BEC) course to healthcare provider's nationwide.
The BEC has been piloted in several countries in Africa and has had a dramatic impact, drastically reducing morbidity and mortality. Our goal is to first teach a cadre of trainers to disseminate this teaching and then set forth on a year long series of trainings to reach ~75% of health care providers.
This program will benefit the entire population of Belize. Recent studies show that the main hospital of Belize (Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital) a trauma incidence of 22%. Of this population, 19% die from their injuries, often because they are not able to be stabilized prior to transport to the main hospital.
The expected impact is to reduce the mortality and morbidity of trauma in Belize. We plan to study the impact of this training.
This was a wonderful success. Our group of facilitators trained 34 Belizean physicians and nurses to become Belize's first group of the WHO's Basic Emergency Care trainers for the entire country. Over the next year, this group will go on to train ~ 80% of Belize's health care providers in Basic Emergency Care course, with a goal of improving emergency care provided countrywide.
