Senior doctors claims that one week is insufficient, but HCWS will assist in reading symptoms and alerting specialists.
Even as another Covid wave looms, over 1,500 doctors and staff nurses, many of whom are newly inducted, are set to undergo a week-long training for impending duty in Covid ICUS (Intensive Care Units) in Gujarat.
Training has started from January 3rd. It will be held in three batches over the next three weeks at 15 medical colleges in Gujarat, and will include theory, practicals, and basic ventilatory training at the sub-district level.
Trainees in each batch will have 25 personnel – 10 medical officers and 15 staff nurses from every district, drawn from Primary Health Centres (PHC) etc They will be given theory training by doctors of medicine departments and will be taught practicals by doctors in the Medicine ICU, Paediatric ICU, Ob-Gyn ICU, Labour Room and Surgical
ICU. They will also be given training in critical care by the anaesthesia department for ventilatory procedures.
Training sessions will be held at all six Government Medical Colleges (GMCS), seven GMERS medical colleges, as well as Zydus Hospital Dahod and Adani Medical College, Kutch. “We are training people at the primary and secondary level for intubation, critical care, how to give medication, and so on,” said Dr Nayan Jani, in-charge additional director of family welfare, who issued the Covid-19 Third Wave ICU Ventilator Training order on December 25.
Doctors who have previously conducted training on the ground prior to the second wave, however, informed that ICU management training cannot be imparted in a week. “ICU management cannot be taught in a week,” a senior government doctor said, “but protocol-based training can be enabled where they know when to call for critical care experts when patients exhibit certain symptoms.”