Call for more first aid training for day care employees

Chief Executive Officer of the Heart and Stroke Foundation, Gina Pitts says there is a need for more employees of local Day Care Centres to be trained in First Aid.

 

Her comments came while speaking on the side-lines of a donation by the Heart and Stroke Foundation of 14 resuscitators and over 400 catheters on Wednesday. These presentations were made to eight polyclinics and to the Medical Intensive Care Unit and the Accident and Emergency Unit of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH).

 

“I think we need more First Aiders in nurseries. If you send your child to a nursery you should expect that at least somebody there could deal with an emergency should it occur. It is those kinds of companies that the onus should be on them to 

think well, we need to do that and I think parents need to start asking questions.”

 

Pitts explained that the day’s donation came on the heels of the recent spate of sudden cardiac death in Barbados and also a recent presentation of life saving equipment to the Heart and Stroke Foundation by Berger Paints Barbados Limited. She further said the Foundation was pleased to give to sections of the local health sector. 

 

“We are very happy to be able to make the presentation to you all. Hope that the beneficiaries get better and are successful in their resuscitation and also because these are paediatric resuscitators that we are giving to you, we are 

hopeful that you don’t have to use them too often.”

 

Speaking on behalf the QEH, Communication Specialist, Julie Carrington thanked the Foundation for their generosity. She added, “We promise that the catheters and the resuscitators will be put to good use because as we know health budgets continue to shrink and all these private partnerships are welcomed because government can’t do it alone, as it relates to buying all the supplies and all the help that we can get from the private sectors we welcome.” (MG)