The Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) in the north west of Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan, has been a site of increasing violence. This situation has been met head on by IDEALS with the establishment of a training project in Primary Trauma Care (PTC). The work has progressed despite increasing danger to all participants as the security situation has deteriorated. Seventeen selected doctors were brought from the Agencies to Peshawar on February 8th 2009, to be trained as instructors in PTC. All of them qualified and there is now a cadre of individuals spread along the border with Afghanistan who have undertaken to cascade the message of trauma training to junior doctors, nursing staff and paramedics. IDEALS will continue to support this great endeavour by assisting the collaboration between the FATA doctors and the Peshawar PTC Faculty, whose Chairman is Professor Arif Khan. In addition plans are afoot to provide small peripheral medical centres, with modified trauma training kits that will allow immediate resuscitation of patients prior to transfer to District Hospitals. Our ultimate goal is to train and equip lay individuals in FATA villages in resuscitative first aid. IDEALS is grateful to the clinicians of Peshawar to their contribution to this training; to Professor Saeed Minhas for travelling from Karachi to instruct in the trainers course and to Gandhara University for their total commitment throughout the FATA training programme.
Tue 17 Feb 2009