The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in collaboration with the Rivers State Hospitals Management Board, yesterday, began three-day training on trauma management for nearly 20 healthcare professionals from civil and military hospitals in Port Harcourt.
The training, which includes both theory and practical life-saving techniques of handling different types of trauma, aims to equip the selected healthcare staff with the most up-to-date skills in handling trauma patients.
It is the latest in the series of six trainings that the ICRC would organise for medical staff this year and facilitated by two experienced surgeons and trainers: Dr Iqbal Khurshid, from India and Dr Godfrey Onyedika, from Nigeria.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the training in Port Harcourt, ICRC’s Health Coordinator, Dr. Gabriel Mufuta Kankolongo, said: “Timely management of trauma patients can save lives and drastically reduce post-operations complications.
“The ICRC has accumulated years of experience in trauma case management working in different countries affected by armed conflict or violence. Through our cooperation with Nigerian health institutions, we aim to share this knowledge and enhance the skills of Nigerian civil and military health practitioners”, Khurshid said.
In his remarks, the ICRC Surgeon and Programme Facilitator, Dr Khurshid Iqbal stated that the 3-day training programme was designed to ensure that doctors and nurses from private, public and military hospitals get the basic knowledge on how to manage trauma patients in their immediate emergency rooms.
Iqbal noted that many factors such as conflicts, domestic violence, road traffic accidents, among others, were responsible for trauma.
He stressed that it was vital for doctors and nurses in the Rivers State to refresh their knowledge in best standard way to manage trauma patients, noting that there was need for collaboration with the Rivers State Government to do more in the area of training and retraining of healthcare staff.
He tasked the government to ensure that those working in the emergency trauma rooms were properly trained while also upgrading the needed equipment and infrastructure in the trauma rooms.
On his part, one of the beneficiaries from the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH), Mr Nwankwo Iheanyi stated that the 3-day programme would equip them with the competence and capacity to improve in their areas of specialty.
Iheanyi noted that the programme would avail them the necessary awareness needed to reduce the high rate of trauma cases recorded thus far in the state, while commending ICRC for putting the training in place.
He appealed to the Rivers State Government to organize similar programmes to impact on its staff positively as well as save the lives of trauma patients.

Susan Serekara-Nwikhana & Richard Barine