By Sandra Prévil
HSC Nurse Anesthetist and Co-Manager, HSC BLS Program
Since November 2012, Hôpital Sacré Coeur has continued to save lives by adding up to date BLS (Basic Life Support) and ACLS (Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support) protocols to its roster of patient care. We thank Boston medical volunteer, Barbara Moloney, MSN, RN, CCRH, Ph.D. and her team for sharing their knowledge with us and for thinking about how we can improve our competencies in order to save lives.
In November 2012, Dr. Moloney and her team came to HSC to teach BLS and ACLS classes to the nurses and the physicians. Their objective was not only to train the HSC medical staff in these skills but to equip a select staff to become AHA certified BLS and ACLS instructors. They too want HSC to become a recognized American Heart Association BLS Center. We are very excited to have this opportunity.
HSC nurse, Irma Percinthe and I are the managers of this program. We have already started to work hard to help HSC become the first BLS center in Haiti; our goal is to teach every nurse, doctor and laboratory technician at HSC how to perform high CPR quality so we can all save more lives. By the end of this year, we plan to have at least 300 health professionals with BLS certification.
Already we have witnessed success. On February 5, 2013, Dr. Florestal, who is one of the instructors on our team, attended to a 48-year old woman, admitted to the ICU with metabolic trouble, pneumonia and decompensate diabetes.
Suddenly, the patient experienced a cardiac arrest. Dr. Florestal recognized it in time and with the help of Irma started CPR and had the patient’s heart beats return back quickly before needing to shock or give epinephrine to her. They were very happy to save this life. Best of all, after a few days, the lady returned home.
We plan to have regular BLS class every month. We are so excited to start the first class on February 26. We hope to have better outcomes in saving life than before.
