Regional Online Refresher Course on Medical First Responder (MFR) conducted
Nov 3, 2020
Under USAID/BHA supported Program for Enhancement of Emergency Response (PEER) stage 4, National Society for Earthquake Technology –Nepal (NSET) has developed regional online refresher courses on Medical First Responder (MFR), Community Action for Disaster Response (CADRE) and Hospital Preparedness for Emergencies (HOPE) courses. As per the consensus built among the senior instructors during the regional course review workshops held on 21 July 2020, based on which the MFR regional online refresher course was developed and a test course was conducted on 15 September 2020. The online refresher course materials were improved based on the feedbacks & suggestions received from the test course before conduction of main course.
MFR regional online refresher course has been conducted during 21-22 October 2020 via ZOOM including participants from India, Nepal and Pakistan. There were total 23 participants; Seven from India, Six from Nepal and Seven from Pakistan participated and Three observers from Nepal. The participants mainly involved were Medical Doctors, Emergency Responders, community volunteers and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) specialists. Along all participants, 22 were males and four were females. Since the course was, a refresher course and the participants who participated were once graduated in MFR course. Hence, the course was not pass or fail course but the evaluation was marked with the pretest and posttest, which showed the rise of almost 18% from 67.3% to 85%. Four instructors; three from Nepal and one from Pakistan, were involved including the Course Coordinator/Course Monitor.
In addition to regular course contents of MFR, the online refresher course includes some skill and knowledge related to COVID-19. The MFR online refresher course graduates are expected to have enhanced skills and knowledge on personal safety, triage, handling patients with infectious diseases, providing appropriate pre-hospital treatment for respiratory distress and other medical emergencies; and promote the advancement of hygiene practices, and disinfection guidelines. The current health emergency created by COVID-19 has increased the need for trained MFR to provide the required pre-hospital interventions with updated skills for responding COVID-19.
Considering the current need of capacity enhancement for preparedness, risk reduction and response (PR3) to COVID-19, NSET has planned to conduct total four MFR regional online refresher courses under PEER-4.
