By Barbara Moloney, MSN, RN, CCRN
During the first week of January 2010, a team of nurse educators from the greater Boston area visited Hôpital Sacré Cœur (HSC). They were part of a comprehensive plan for nursing education that was initiated in January 2008, led by Deb O’Hara-Ruskowski and Barbara Moloney, and supported by nursing faculty from Lawrence Memorial/Regis Collage nursing program and nurse educators from Lahey Clinic. However, this visit was unique because it was the first time the focus was on teaching nurses from HSC to become the educators themselves. On January 5th, Darlene Bourgeois and Barbara Moloney initiated the first program that would facilitate Haitian nurses to become educators at HSC. Darlene led the Basic Life Support (BLS) instructor class that trained five nurses from HSC as BLS instructors.
The newly qualified instructors, Irma Percinthe, Lonna Pierre Delva, Judith Charles, Pascale Beliard and Lovely Laynonne, proved to be talented educators as they taught their first class a few days later, certifying 15 of their colleagues to become BLS providers. They now form the core of nurse educators at HSC, as they continue to train healthcare providers from HSC and the surrounding area in BLS.
Since January 2010, they have run three more courses: one in June, 2010, and two in March 2011, certifying both physicians and nurses in BLS. As of today, over 50 nurses and physicians at HSC have been certified in BLS.
When the earthquake happened on January 12th, those of us who had just left were deeply saddened and desperate to return to Haiti and offer our assistance. Barbara Moloney returned to HSC on January 23rd and was assigned to work in the ICU. The ICU was full, and the work challenging for the volunteers, as well as the Haitian nurses, who had little experience with critical care nursing. The Haitian nurses working in the ICU expressed an interest in learning more about critical care nursing.
In March 2010, Barbara returned with Brenda Sawyer, a respiratory therapist from Florida, to start teaching the critical care course. After they left, Dr. Harold Previl continued the instruction. Two weeks later, Darlene Bourgeois and two more critical care educators from Lahey Clinic, Marlene Barrett and Eleanor Lawler, arrived to complete the course.
Topics covered included, but were not limited to, cardiac monitoring, caring for patients on mechanical ventilation and BiPap, and managing the ventilators.
As nurses and physicians became more comfortable with the new monitoring equipment and concepts of critical care, the need for an Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support (ACLS) course was clear, and the enthusiasm palpable. In April 2011, Barbara Moloney and Evin Parker, an ACLS instructor from Lahey Clinic, and Todd Miller, an ACLS instructor form California, returned to teach ACLS. Twenty nurses, nurse anesthetists, and physicians completed the course and were certified in ACLS.
Our Haitian colleagues put their knowledge and skills to work the night after completing the course, when a patient with an acute MI was admitted to the ICU.
Although this patient’s course was complicated by ventricular dysrhythmias and a cardiac arrest, she was successfully resuscitated and went on to make a full recovery.
Plans for the next year include an ACLS provider course in May 2012. Several nurses and physicians have expressed an interest in taking an ACLS instructor course. Support for the BLS program continues. These programs will help recruitment and retention of highly sought after nurses and physicians in this resource poor area. The long-term goal will be for HSC to become the first international training center for American Heart Association (AHA) courses and provide BLS and ACLS certification for healthcare providers throughout the country.
Barbara Moloney, MSN, RN, CCRN, DNPc, is Assistant Clinical Professor for the Lawrence Memorial/Regis College Nursing Program and a Central Educator at the Lahey Clinic. She is a Certified Critical Care Nurse (CCRN) who lives north of Boston.
