Maiden emergency life-saving skills training underway in Kumasi …as Elijah Foundation introduces hands-on technique for CPR

A Non-Profit Health Organ­isation based in Ghana, Elijeko Foundation, has embarked on an ambitious project to train over 200 people as Cardiopulmo­nary Resuscitation (CPR) Instructors in the country this year.

The project is being undertaken in part­nership with the US-based Global Mission Readiness, a non-profit organisation that provides emergency services education and resources to public safety agencies world­wide.

Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) is a lifesaving hands-only technique that is useful in many emergencies, such as a heart attack particularly where someone’s breathing or heartbeat has stopped.

This hands-only CPR applies to both un­trained bystanders and first responders.

The Country Director of Elijeko Foun­dation, Celestina Kalor Abapiri, revealed this during a CPR training workshop held in Kumasi last week for some 20 selected pro­fessionals drawn from the Kumasi Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industries in the Ashanti Region.

She said it had become necessary to train more people across the country to augment the skill of saving lives under emergency circumstances especially issues relating to heart attacks.

“Selected community volunteers will be trained on emergency medical services, basic water rescue training, rope rescue and vehicle extrication through partnership with organi­sations such asGlobal Mission Readiness and other fire departments in the United States and Canada,” she said.

She added “when we recently launched the Pre-Hospital Emergency Training in Kumasi, it became necessary that we focus on “train the trainer” programmes so that more peo­ple will be trained to provide bystander CPR education in their local communities to help othersacquire this critical health and basic lifesaving skills.

She said “Currently in Ghana, there is limited number of CPR Instructors, so Eli­jeko Foundation has taken it upon itself to train more people.We are going to train not necessarily only medical professionals but other persons with little or no knowledge at all about CPR matters.”

On his part, the Chief Executive Offi­cer of Elijeko Foundation, Mr Andrews KwabenaNyantakyi said the NGO had worked with Global Mission Readiness in previous years to train NADMO volunteers and first responders in Afigya Kwabre Dis­trict, Sekyere Afram Plains and Bosomtwe Constituency.

He added that “Elijeko Foundation has opened discussions with Global Mission Readiness to help develop the “train the trainer” concept so that many can receive in­formation needed to provide effective CPR intervention, and the foundation plans to send some selected individuals to the United States for future training.”

Commenting on the said partnership, Miss Sannah Maan who is the Head of Impact and Giving on behalf of AwesomeBooks, U.K based book seller who pledged sup­port for the project said her company had worked closely with Mr. Nyantakyi since 2011 in Ghana to donate books to schools in the Ashanti Region and was excited to support Elijeko Foundation’s initiative to make healthcare knowledge accessible to Ghanaians.

One of the beneficiaries of Elijeko Foun­dation’s CPR initiative was the Operations Manager, at Prudential Bank Adum Branch in Kumasi, Mr Kwaku Sarpong.

He was optimistic and appreciated Elijeko Foundation saying that he believed the CPR training would go a long way to help save lives.

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