JNF Staff Complete Ebola Preparedness Training

(ZIZ News)– The Ministry of Health has continued taking steps to prepare health care workers to respond to an Ebola case and possibly an outbreak.

A series of training sessions for JNF Hospital staff wrapped up on Thursday [Nov. 13].

It was the final instalment of several weeks of theory and practical sessions, where facilitators focused on putting on and removing protective gear.

One of the facilitators, Dr. Dwain Archibald, said the main goal was to ensure that health care workers are properly trained to be safe when working with Ebola patients.

“We want the health care workers, the ones that are in primary contact with the patients, to feel comfortable dealing with them. And we have identified that these are points where contamination can be rampant,” he stated.

Meantime, Infection Control Officer at the Hospital, Kerry Williams-Tuckett said this type of training is very necessary.

“They have to take the process step-by-step because any shortcut and they’ll be easily contaminated and also, they have to know the doffing process. They have to go through it step-by-step and make sure that they’re doing it correctly. They cannot learn it in one process but we are showing them and making sure that they learn it from the beginning [so] they can have a general idea of what to do and what to expect,” she explained.

While Thursday’s sessions wrapped up this series of classes, Williams-Tuckett said it is not the end as the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) is always issuing updates to its guidelines.

“Every day something changes, even for the U.S. Every day the CDC changes something. So even though you may be trying as much as possible to be prepared, you’re not 100 percent prepared so all you can do is try your best,” Williams-Tuckett said.

The facilitators say more classes will be convened if necessary.