The ‘Doctors Worldwide Improving Care in Health Emergencies’ (The DICE programme) is a 9-month programme running between April and December 2020 with the aim of introducing emergency care within the Rohingya refugee camps, Cox’s Bazar Bangladesh. Working in 10 clinic facilities in partnership with the UN-IOM, and utilising DWW’s medical experts from around the world including Bangladesh – the DICE programme involves training local Bangladeshi doctors, nurses and medical assistants on emergency medicine, developing protocols and strengthening clinical infrastructure to provide emergency care during a health emergency. Currently emergency medicine as a discipline does not exist in Bangladesh. This programme aims to support local initiatives in developing emergency care in a humanitarian setting.
With some travel restrictions lifted, Doctors Worldwide has recently deployed a team of global experts to work on the ground in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh to continue the DICE Programme. In addition to our CEO, Field Coordinator and Project Manager, we deployed an Emergency Medicine nurse, EM specialist, Primary Care specialist and Obstetrics and Gynaecology specialist who will be training DICE participants and working on field-project related activities over the next few months. This has also meant the safe return of some face-to-face DICE training sessions, following COVID-19 health guidelines and regulations.
In the past few weeks, two key training sessions were conducted in person.
- Basic Life Support (BLS): BLS focuses on participants to promptly recognise several life-threatening emergencies, give high quality chest compressions, demonstrate techniques for choking victims, deliver appropriate ventilations and provide early use of an AED.
- A to E Scenarios: using the Airway, Breathing, Circulation, Disability, Exposure approach to assess and treat the patient.
“The DICE programme was originally forced to deliver its teaching sessions via online platforms as a result of the pandemic. However, some sessions were rescheduled to allow the life support sessions to be delivered face to face so that participants could practice hands on skills. The first face-to-face session involved the participants receiving didactic training on Basic Life Support. The lecture was followed by demonstration and practice”.
–Dr Mir Ahmed. Training Programme Director.
The DICE programme will be running until mid-December 2020. We aim to continue the development of emergency care across several more health clinics within the Rohingya camps and host communities in 2021 focusing on emergency unit development and capacity building of doctors, nurses and medical assistants.
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