More than 30 people from the remote areas of Vunga and Avungi Wards in the Inland Baining LLG of Gazelle District in East New Britain Province, have now been equipped with Community Based Health and First Aid (CBHFA) skills and knowledge.
The participants had a one-week long training held at Vunga Ward facilitated by the East New Britain PNG Red Cross Branch Coordinator, Steven Kilalang and team.
CBHFA is one training that Red Cross PNG is undertaking throughout the country in which there are two types of training; one for business houses Commercial First Aid (CFA) and the other type of first aid training are for the people in the community known as the Community Based Health and First Aid.
Kilalang said the training is basically a component of the disaster risk reduction management which is applied to the risk affected areas in the communities.
“The training conducted basically engages volunteers to be trained on the CBHFA so that they assist people in their communities when emergencies arises.”
“The first aid program is based and focused on various injuries that includes basic life support, bleeding management, general medical condition, fracture management, poison snake bite, lack of oxygen, burns and scalds and emergency childbirth.”
He said the program also teaches cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to manually activate the heart in any point of accident which is more paramount in any casualty and also community mapping.
In addition, Kilalang further stated that the participants were so eager to take the training and from his observation all the participants had passed the eighty percent requirement and have been certified.
Meanwhile, Vunga Ward member, Ulaias William, said that they were so thankful for the training as with their remote location, there is no proper road and transportation and with emergencies it is very difficult to help those in need.
“This training will greatly help our people in the wards, if there is any accidents or emergencies we can be better equipped to save them.”
He thanked the PNG Red Cross team in ENB stating that it is the initiative of the community and churches in the wards to have this training as this will help them greatly as many times they encounter accidents and emergencies.
This is not the first time PNG Red Cross ENB team ran such training.
They have been running such trainings as well such as climate change, water and sanitation, integrated vulnerability capacity assessment and disaster management.