The training is to equip them as active volunteers of the Ghana Red Cross Society (GRCS) to acquire knowledge in relief services and attend to emergency health situations in their schools and the communities.

 

It is being organised by the GRCS, in conjunction with the Ghana Education Service (GES) and attended by 72 teachers. 

 

Mr Matthew Boateng, the Western Regional Manager of the GRCS, told the GNA on the sidelines of the training that 2,000 teachers from 14 districts in the region had so far benefited from the training programme. 

 

He said as part of the training, the GRCS had supplied the teachers with First Aid Manuals to boost their capacity on how to deal with emergency health issues.

 

Mr Boateng said every school and day care centre must have access to First Aid Kits to attend to school children in case of any casualties.

 

He said most of the trained teachers had formed Disaster Management Teams through the Red Cross Society to prevent and mitigate disasters in their schools and communities.

 

Mr Boateng reminded the teachers that; "A good first aider to attend to ill people, disaster and accident victims, must be observant, resourceful, gentle, tactful, sympathetic, cheerful and courageous in a bid to bring relief to the situation".

 

He said it was incumbent on first aiders "to adopt a life-saving technique to monitor the Airway, Breathing and Circulation (ABC) of an injured or sick person before a professional medical assistance.”

 

Mr Philip Bruce Arhin, the Regional First Aid Instructor, who took the teachers through First Aid steps, reminded them that as first aiders, they ought to make it their prime motive to “preserve lives, prevent a condition from getting worse, and promote recovery and human dignity".

 

He appealed to the volunteers not to "frighten victims in emergency situations but encourage them that their condition will be better”.

 

The trainees were taken through some basic steps such as cardio pulmonary resuscitation, external bleeding, wounds and cuts, bleeding with embedded object, shock, choking, drowning, burns, scalds and poisoning. 

 

GNA