On Thursday and Friday of last week nurses and doctors at the KHMH underwent training on neonatal resuscitation. Doctors from Cincinnati held the program for 15 staffers of the KHMH. Pediatrician Victor Rosado says that the training is important to save lives of newborns in the crucial first few seconds of life.
Dr. Victor Rosado,
"We try to get our nurses and doctors up to date on what's the latest methods to resuscitate a new born to prevent asphyxia in the new born."
"What we're trying to do in the next two days is to introduce, or re-introduce, a neo-natal resuscitation program or NRP as a course that trains doctors, nurses, mid-wives how to resuscitate babies at deliveries if those babies aren't breeding or if they have problems. What our hope is that we'll develop a national program with instructors right here at Karl Heusner who could train other instructors throughout all the districts of Belize."
"The first few minutes that a baby comes to life, if the baby needs oxygen or if the needs to be suctioned and we have few seconds in delay, that can have repercussions in the baby's entire lifetime. So we are teaching here today how to manage the baby in the first few minutes of life. If those first few minutes are not properly managed, you can have a baby with cerebral palsy, you can have a baby with epilepsy, you can have a baby with problems that will affect him for the rest of his life."
Some of those medical persons trained will now continue the training to other medical personnel throughout the country.
7NEWS produced for broadcast by News Director Jules Vasquez
Edited for the internet by Keith Swift
