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Primary Trauma Care training: taking learning beyond the Democratic Republic of Congo

Catherine Setchell

Senior Communications Officer, King's Global Health Partnerships

25 May 2022

In 2016, the first Primary Trauma Care (PTC) course was delivered in the Democratic Republic of Congo, delivered by King’s Global Health Partnerships’ volunteers, in partnership with the Kongo Central provincial Ministry of Health. Since then, the training has been successfully rolled out in six sites across the province, training 300 health workers and 25 PTC instructors, under the direction of the newly formed Kongo Central PTC committee, and with ongoing support from King’s.

Primary Trauma Care (PTC) is a system of training for front-line doctors and nurses in trauma management, aimed at preventing death and disability in seriously injured patients. The two-day practical course is delivered free of charge within the Kongo Central province by PTC instructors, using the international framework of the PTC Foundation, a global NGO. It takes into account resource constraints experienced in low resource settings, based on straightforward clinical practice and does not require access to high-tech facilities.

Following the successful rollout of this training, the Kongo Central PTC committee and KGHP were recently invited to share this learning beyond the DRC, to train 49 health workers and 12 PTC instructors in a neighbouring country, Burundi. 

With support from the PTC Foundation and the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, Dr Gilles Eloi Rwibuka from the Burundi Association of Anaesthetists, invited Congolese colleagues to train health workers in Burundi in the PTC framework, after identifying a clear need for this training:

We have one trauma centre in Burundi run by Médecins Sans Frontières. There are 17 provinces in Burundi and wherever major trauma occurs, the patients have to come to the one trauma centre in the city of Bujumbura. This needs to be addressed. Moving miles to come to Bujumbura is very tough if a patient has had a major injury. We need to ensure [PTC] knowledge and skills are all around the country so the trauma patient can be treated at the site of where they sustain injuries" – Dr Gilles Eloi Rwibuka, Burundi Association of Anaesthetists and Coordinator of PTC training in Burundi

A team of four PTC trainers from DRC travelled to Burundi and delivered the two-day training to healthcare workers, including anaesthetists, surgeons, physicians and nurses. They were trained in the systematic approach to managing injured patients and a cohort of the participants were then trained as PTC instructors, to cascade the training to other health workers across the country.

 

PTC training Burundi demo with patient on table
PTC instructors Burundi

It was also a valuable learning experience for the PTC instructors from the DRC who delivered the course, as Dr Joenel Mbuangi Mfundu explains, 

People really welcomed the training. [I appreciated] the culture exchange with people I had heard about but never met. I learnt something of their language. I learnt new skills as an instructor- how to communicate in another language. We were able to encourage the new instructors we trained to teach in their own language. I also learnt intubation skills from the anaesthetists.– Dr Joenel Mbuangi Mfundu, Medical Director CSR Luila and PTC Instructor, Democratic Republic of Congo

The PTC training forms part of a wider research and education programme being developed in Burundi, to assess the impacts of the PTC training courses on the care that trauma patients receive. The research is taking place at the Hôpital Prince Régent Charles, the largest hospital in Burundi, with the aim of turning it into a training centre where the PTC course will be cascaded to the whole hospital, and then across the country.

Latest figures from the World Health Organisation show that the mortality rate caused by road traffic injury is 36 per 100,000 population in Burundi.

Half of deaths related to trauma could be avoided if proper treatment is given. With this PTC course we can prevent death. Implementing the PTC course in Burundi, where death rates related to trauma are so high, will mean [first responders] and health workers can give the primary measures for care and stabilise the patients so they can be transferred to the facilities that can care for them.– Dr Gilles Eloi Rwibuka, Burundi Association of Anaesthetists and Coordinator of PTC training in Burundi

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