Surgeons at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPHC) have removed a very rare “human tail” from a 10-day old baby, the tertiaty health care institution said Sunday. The successful surgery was conducted on the boy on June 18, 2023 by a medical team led by Chief Neurosurgeon, Dr. Amarnauth Dukhi. The GPHC said the surgery included ...

The Mahdia Secondary School student, who was badly burnt in last week’s dormitory fire, has undergone her first of many surgeries in a New York hospital, Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony said Tursday. He said the 13-year old girl, who was flown out of Guyana aboard an air ambulance on Saturday, successfully underwent surgery earlier ...

The group said that building the skills for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) can start at age four — and be developed over time through routine training.

By the time children have reached 10 years old, they then may be able to perform effective chest compressions on manikins, said the statement published in Circulation, the American Heart Association’s journal. 

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It detailed evidence showing that schoolchildren as young as age four know how to call for help in a medical emergency — and that, by the ages of 10-12, they can even administer effective chest compressions when performing CPR.

The statement also said that kids can become aware of automated external defibrillators (AEDs) and begin learning the steps and rhythm of CPR. 

"Building skills at a young age that are reinforced consistently throughout their years in school has the potential to educate generations of students and their parents on how to respond to cardiac arrest, perform chest compressions and rescue breaths, use an AED and ultimately increase survival," Comilla Sasson, M.D., PhD and a member of the statement-writing committee, said in a news release. 

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Sasson, an emergency physician based in the Denver area who serves as vice president for science and innovation at the American Heart Association, said all family members should know what to do in the event of a cardiac arrest (when the heart stops beating) — since it occurs most often outside a hospital setting. 

The report authors reviewed over 100 research articles about training students in CPR. 

They found that school-aged children are highly motivated to learn life-saving skills and often "multiply" their training by sharing what they have learned with others, the news release said. 

"Training students has become a key element to increase the number of people ready to perform CPR when cardiac arrest occurs outside a hospital, and potentially increase rates of CPR and cardiac arrest survival globally," Dr. Bernd W. Böttiger, chair of the statement-writing group and head of the Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine at the University Hospital of Cologne in Cologne, Germany, said in a news release.

The authors recommended a combination of theoretical and practical training in schools and using social media tools to help share lifesaving skills. 

Worldwide, cardiac arrest that occurs away from a hospital setting is a leading cause of death, with survival rates range between 2% and 20% globally, according to the report. 

These rates are especially low when a bystander does not take immediate action, the news release said. 

"With survival rates of 2% to 20% for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, this study delineates the significance of children and their ability to respond not only in a timely manner but also provide care in a critical period for a patient or possibly even a friend or family member," said Dr. Zachary Hena, M.D., a pediatric cardiologist at Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital at NYU Langone in New York City, who was not associated with the report.

Hena also told Fox News Digital, "We know the time from when someone is down to [the] time to starting chest compressions and/or delivering an effective shock if necessary improves survival and outcomes. Effectively, kids can save lives from this study — but more importantly, kids will save lives," he added. 

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Dr. Kendra Hoepper, a pediatric nurse practitioner and an associate professor and program director of nursing at Dominican University of California in San Rafael, told Fox News Digital that it's important to implement a tiered type of training program regarding CPR and first aid in children. 

That way, kids can feel more comfortable and not be fearful of reacting. 

Despite their young age, she said even a 4-year-old could be helpful in an emergency.

"The sooner we can encourage kids to know what to do in emergencies, the better," she said.

"Let's say a parent or grandparent collapses in the home — [children] may not know how to check a pulse or for breathing, but they can recognize when something is wrong and they should know to call 9-1-1." 

She added, "The 4-year-old can at least talk to someone on the phone who would then be able to instruct the child on what to do until emergency services arrive."

Hoepper and some of her former colleagues at Molloy University in Rockville Center, New York, partnered with local schools and organizations such as the Girls Scouts and Boy Scouts to help educate the community on the American Heart Association’s "Hands On Only" CPR training through formal classes and pop-up tent events. 

Debra McWilliams, MS, RN, director of Interprofessional Simulation at Long Island University Post in Brookville, New York, said of the report, "We know that every second counts when it comes to helping someone who has collapsed from a cardiac event."

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She added, "Many people witnessed the collapse of Buffalo Bills football player Damar Hamlin on the field this past year. Within seconds, team trainers provided CPR and used an automated external defibrillator (AED) to restart his heart." 

McWilliams and her nursing students recently taught CPR to the LIU community.

She said, "Knowledge is power. Educating people of all ages, children to adults, will have a positive ripple effect. This lesson can literally save lives."

By Anesta Henry

The Barbados Union of Teachers’ (BUT) plea for additional psychologists to be placed in schools has received full support from the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Supreme Counselling for Personal Development Shawn Clarke.
He told Barbados TODAY that he has been advocating for more psychologists in schools since the resumption of face-to-face classes following the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Clarke, whose organisation manages an anti-bullying prevention programme in several secondary schools, said that as far as he was aware, the Ministry of Education recently placed counsellors and safety officers at some schools.
Addressing Monday’s opening of the BUT’s Annual General Conference at the Radisson Aquatica, President Rudy Lovell said that with the increase in the incidents of violence in schools, the Ministry of Education urgently needed to hire additional psychologists since the present complement was woefully inadequate.
Lovell, who also called for an increased effort to provide psychological support to at-risk students and their parents, suggested that more guidance counsellors, support services, and safety officers should be assigned to schools.
In a response, Clarke said “I do think that the services of more psychologists are needed to help with our young people. And I have been saying that the Government doesn’t need to do it on their own, everybody doesn’t need to be an employee of the Ministry of Education.
“We have enough non governmental organisations in Barbados that have access to psychologists and psychiatrists and professional development counsellors on their teams that can partner with the Ministry of Education to make these services readily available to students,” he said.
“We just need to sit at the table and come up with a way that is workable and that is mutually beneficial to both parties.”
Clarke queried whether the psychologists and counsellors in the school system are equipped with the resources to provide the intense intervention that many at-risk students need. Students need to be assigned to a psychologist for at least three years, as opposed to just for a six-week term or an academic year, he added.
“The question is are the psychologists who are in the schools adequately prepared to see one child for that extended period? Secondly, with an enrolment of almost 1 000 students at schools, some of these psychologists and counsellors, are attached to two schools.
“Counsellors now have 2 000 students when you look at it. Do they have access to the facilities to be able to do prolonged counselling? For a lot of these children, a six-week fix is no fix.”
anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb

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The University of Guyana (UG), now in its 60th year, is set to host its 2nd Diaspora  Conference at the Turkeyen Campus, Greater Georgetown, Guyana, during the period  May 8-10, 2023 under the theme “Calling 592: Honouring, Researching, Reigniting  Diaspora.” The Diaspora Conference is one of several signature events being hosted by the  University this ...

The Canadian government on Tuesday inked a CDN$2.5 million agreement with the non-governmental organisation, Giving Health to Kids, to improve maternal, newborn and child health in Guyana’s hinterland after research showed some worrisome findings. President of Giving Health to Kids, Associate Clinical Professor at Mc Master University, Dr Narendra Singh said the five-year project has ...

By Shamar Blunt

A consultant physician at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) says the practice of junior doctors working shifts in excess of 30 hours is “dangerous” and needs to stop in the interest of patient and public safety.

“It’s not acceptable,” Dr Kenneth Connell acknowledged in an interview with Barbados TODAY, a day after Government Senator Dr Crystal Haynes called for an end to 30-hour work days for these professionals.

He disclosed that an internal study done in the department of medicine showed that “11 out of 14 junior staff members felt significantly burnt out”. Although he did not indicate when this study was done, Dr Connell said the findings were “significant”.

“These are doctors in internal medicine who have been working long shifts, so 32 hours at least. Internal medicine admits roughly about 70 per cent of the admission burden to the hospital… but yet these doctors are working at their limits, having not slept,” the doctor said.

The Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the University of West Indies Cave Hill Campus suggested that just as there are limits on the number of hours pilots are allowed in the air, having caps on the length of doctors’ shifts would be in the best interest of the public.

“Is it possible for pilots to be flying a plane for 30 hours without rest, or working 30 hours? I have been in airports where flights have been [delayed or] cancelled because, during the upcoming flight, the pilot would have crossed his number of hours without sleep. 

“But yet, we have people making critical decisions, life or death situations, that have possibly not slept or we cannot guarantee that they were sleeping for ‘x’ period of hours. To me, in 2023, that is unacceptable,” he said.

During the debate on the Appropriation Bill, 2023 in the Upper House on Tuesday, Senator Haynes said the problem of doctors working extremely long shifts needed to be addressed urgently to safeguard the safety of both patients and healthcare providers.

“[Working excessive hours] is very normal for a lot of doctors, both at the intern level and at consultant level. You work all day on the wards, you spend the night in the ER [emergency room] dealing with emergencies that are coming through all night, and then you continue to work into the next day. That is something that is a threat not just [to] patient safety but [to] the personal safety of our healthcare providers,” the medical practitioner said.

She noted that there were studies which showed that working for more than 17 hours with little rest can lead to fatigue-related impairment in cognitive and physiological functioning, which is comparable to the person having a blood alcohol concentration level of 0.05 per cent – similar to levels seen in alcohol intoxication.

Responding to Senator Haynes’ concerns, Dr Connell acknowledged that junior doctors are often asked to work even longer than 30 hours while on call. 

“I thought it was a conservative estimate of saying 30 hours, to be quite honest. I’ll use my speciality as an example. [They] start work at 8 a.m. – these are junior doctors if they are on call –, they work through until 8 the next morning. That is described as the on-call period and then when they finish that period, their day then starts. So from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. [the following day], which by my calculation is 32 hours at least,” he explained.

“This doesn’t mean that they will leave at 4 p.m. because they may leave after, but they continue their work day as if it is a new work day.”

Dr Connell said while this is viewed as a “badge of honour” among healthcare providers, the practice is a dangerous one.

“It is almost what I would describe as an unacceptable badge of honour in medicine, that we work long hours and we did it and therefore, our juniors should do it. It’s not acceptable. Mistakes will happen,” he warned.

“In some parts of the hospital, like emergency rooms, there is a shift system so doctors do an eight-hour shift or six hours and then they leave and then another shift comes. Obviously, the ER is high intensity so they need that, but my argument is it is not in the public health interest to have a doctor that has been working continuously – so not just in hospital but sleep deprived – for 30 hours, and is making any clinical decisions. That doctor should not even be getting into their vehicle and driving home. That’s dangerous.”

The medical consultant stressed that for the situation to change, additional funds would have to be made available to hire additional doctors to improve the shift system.

“It is not going to be a cheap transition. The only thing that is preventing doctors from working shorter hours is [that] you will need to hire more doctors. There needs to be 24-hour coverage, so if one group of doctors are going to work [fewer] hours, then someone has to come in and take over from them. 

“So this resistance to change is largely driven by a financial kind of argument where we cannot afford it. But the flip side of it is can you afford the public health risk? If the answer to that is no, then doctors have to be capped on the number of hours that they’re working,” he said.

During her contribution to the debate, Senator Haynes suggested that the University of the West Indies (UWI) “is producing enough doctors every year that we should be able to expand the complement of staff at the junior doctor level to do away with this system and to roll out a proper roster where we can limit the number of hours”.

Dr Connell told Barbados TODAY that even if more graduates were coming out of university, additional posts would have to be created for them to fill.

“They’re only going to get hired if there are posts for them. So, if you don’t have enough paid posts in the hospital then you can’t hire enough doctors to allow for a shift system to begin with,” he said.

shamarblunt@barbadostoday.bb

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The St Stephen’s Nursery School will remain closed for the remainder of the week after the Ministry of Education’s plan to temporarily relocate students to the nearby Anglican Church failed.
Issues including poor lighting and inadequate lunch arrangements at the church were among the challenges identified by parents and by teachers who tried to facilitate classes there.
Arrangements are to be made for students to engage in classwork online and materials will be distributed to parents to keep the children engaged.
On Tuesday following meetings at the St Stephen’s Anglican Church with executive members of the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT), teachers, president of the Association of Public Primary School Principals Ivan Clarke, staff and parents, Chief Education Officer Dr Ramona Archer-Bradshaw said the ministry did not have adequate time to ensure the church was a conducive learning environment.

Teachers and parents also complained of the fact students had to walk through the church’s graveyard to access the bathrooms, inadequate ventilation and difficulty conducting five classes in a confined area. The situation was further aggravated when workers came to dig a grave in the cemetery using a drilling machine. They were later instructed by the funeral director to complete the job when classes were dismissed.
There are 145 students enrolled at the school in four nursery and five reception classes. Only the reception classes could be accommodated at the church.
Meanwhile, due to the environmental issues that caused the school to officially close twice last week and on Monday, Archer-Bradshaw said a plan of action “was quickly put in place so that children would not lose additional teaching time” and the ministry had instructed the principal to contact the priest to use the church.
“On Monday we were told that the situation had not been rectified as had been expected on Friday so we decided to take quick action with regard to getting the children in the space . . . Sometimes things don’t always work out,” said Archer-Bradshaw.
“If we had three or four days to come and inspect and so on, I could understand that, but we decided that we would come and we would try with the space and I want to thank the teachers and principal for actually coming and trying,” she added.
Last week, the BUT reported that the Ministry of Education was working with environmental health officers to address the problem. A neighbour who raised chickens had promised to have the pens cleaned by last Friday. The environmental problem was first raised last Monday when the school closed early and two days later, parents were given the option to collect their children from the school. However, the school remained open.
(SZB)

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CTUSAB RECOMMENDS EARLIER TERM’S LEAVE FOR TEACHERS TO AVOID FATIGUE

By Jenique Belgrave

Teachers must once again be allowed a term’s leave after five years’ of service.
General Secretary of the Congress of Trade Unions and Staff Associations of Barbados Dennis DePeiza made this clear on Friday as he insisted that educators have to be protected from the very real threat of burnout.
Saying some believed that the three school breaks per year provided enough time for teachers to rest, he suggested that for many of those days, they are still occupied with work.
“When schools are on recess, teachers are at seminars, summer school, preparation meetings and they get burnout. They were supposed to be given a term’s leave after every five years and someone determined that this should be moved to 15 years. I think there needs to be a rethink and teachers should be given a term’s leave after five years,” he said, noting that such a job needed to be incentivised to draw a higher level of interest.
Speaking to the media at the Barbados Union of Teachers’ Merryhill headquarters on Friday, he also expressed concerns over the number of school disruptions being experienced in recent times due to environmental issues and instances of violence.
“When we see disruption that is continuous like this it says something about how we are managing the system…As soon as something happens, somebody pops up, makes a statement and then disappears, but there seems to be no direction coming from the Ministry of Education, none whatsoever to deal with these ongoing issues,” he charged.
Depeiza noted that such stoppages have an impact on the island’s productivity and he suggested that a broad discussion with all stakeholders is necessary if issues affecting the education sector are to be addressed.
“We need to get something done where we engage all stakeholders because this disruption is having an impact on the country’s economic development. You may say only the schools are closed but when the schools are closed, parents have to go for children all during the day, they lose income and some jobs may be on the line because they are not at work.
“There are other social factors that are affected as people who have a little money are spending it on someone to keep their children and on meals as the children are, in some cases, missing out on the school lunches provided.
“We have to look at this broadly and find out what are the problems right across the system, have some serious discussions and look for solutions,” Depeiza added.
jeniquebelgrave@barbadostoday.bb

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