Over two thousand, five hundred secondary school students and teachers drawn from two hundred Public, Missionary and Private schools in Lagos State have been trained as First Responders in Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, CPR, First Aid, and Safety techniques.
The Training was sponsored by TotalEnergies E&P and facilitated by the Health Emergency Initiative, HEI, an award-winning nonprofit organization that provides financial assistance to indigent and vulnerable patients in public hospitals for the overall purpose of saving lives.
In his opening remarks, Executive Director of HEI, Paschal Achunine explained that the training came after the approval of the Lagos State Ministry of Education to train students, set up first responders clubs in schools, conduct essay and debate competitions, and inclusion of pre-hospital skills in the schools curricular.
Achunine noted that the training is also to reduce road traffic accident-related deaths among young by fifty percent, equipping Nigerians regardless of age and profession with skills that can save lives before the arrival of medical personnel.
”We have before now conducted this training for police personnel, LASMA, VIO, FRSC, and Fire Service and also expanded to people that are always at the scene of emergencies, like commercial transporters, taxi drivers, Uber drivers, filling station attendants, and everyone whose daily work puts them at the scene of the emergency.
”So we conducted further needs assessment and realized that young people don’t even know what to do. They’ve not even been exposed to emergency training skills. And so that lends credence to engaging the ministry and securing this approval to train young people on emergency preparedness. The beauty is that in the last five years, we extended this training to young people, secondary school students particularly.
In their schools, we have seen positive outcomes when they handled incidents”.
Training Lead at HEI, Abigail Mkperedem, who highlighted the importance of such training for everyone, explained that the preservation of the golden hour which is estimated to be between zero to four minutes after an emergency occurs is necessary to save lives and the needed skills have been covered by the training.
On her part, Senior Project Officer with HEI, Chika Nade explained that the training aligns with the vision of the NGO to assist in the provision of emergency and life-saving response in public health institutions and support other related initiatives for the good of humanity.
”Interestingly, this is part of what we do, Saving Lives in HEI, and currently, we are in partnership with Total Energy for carrying out safety and first aid training for students and teachers. It’s focused on helping us improve emergency preparedness, not just here in Nigeria, but across, you know, Sub-Saharan Africa.
So the programme is focused on improving the emergency preparedness of secondary school students and teachers. The idea is we just don’t want to leave it for adults. We want to be able to include youth and the younger ones, bringing them up to this sense of responsibility that says that they also can be involved in saving lives.
Earlier, participants at the training expressed satisfaction with the level of knowledge that has impacted them, while also commending the organisers for the initiative.
Yacoub Alabi Wasilat, a teacher with Chrysler School said the training was so fantastic. In her words; Because it’s very rare for you to see an organization or a company that will come up with such training and that will give teachers and students. It’s very rare, so I can say kudos to them because they’ve done a great job by at least training the children from now to have that knowledge of CPR.
Another participant, Mrs. Afola B. Ulubukola from Baptist High School, Senior High School, Obanikoro described the training as an educative training that teaches both students and teachers a lot of things concerning themselves.
“It doesn’t matter whether you’re a science student or an art student, it’s for everybody. That is what you can do in times of emergency. When you find yourself in a situation where there’s no other person who can help you, at least you can render first aid help to a victim, whether of accident, whether outside, road, within the school, within the classroom, what you can do to help your colleagues, your classmates in times of emergency. ”
According to the World Health Organization, W.H.O. Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, CPR, and First Aid treatments for burns, fractures, cardiac arrest, and bleeding resulting from road accidents and emergencies can ensure that victims stay alive until medical personnel arrive on the scene.