As the COVID-19 continues to spread rapidly across the globe, the need to support and train frontline primary care providers has only increased. Emergency care is currently not a specialised field in Bangladesh. Timely and critical interventions through training and strengthening health systems are therefore imperative to help enable and build the local emergency care response and save lives.
In light of this and after months of creating a robust programme, on Friday 10th April 2020 using social distancing methods, Doctors Worldwide in partnership with the United Nation International Organization for Migration (IOM) launched the Doctors Worldwide Improving Care in Health Emergencies (DICE) programme.
This nine-month training and learning programme introduces emergency care to support clinical managers, doctors, nurses, and medical assistants in the field whilst embedding covid-specific learning to slow its spread. The aim of the DICE programme is to bridge the gap between primary care and secondary care by providing hands-on clinical supervision training and clinical audits for Bangladeshi doctors, nurses and medical assistants who are regularly managing acute or life-threatening conditions within 24/7 primary care facilities.
Between April and December 2020 we will be working in 10 healthcare facilities and deploying expert emergency doctors and nurses from around the world including Bangladesh via online sessions to support local Bangladeshi staff. Training has been amended online in light of the current restrictions in place due to COVID-19 and face-to-face training will resume when it is safe to do so.
“It is imperative that low-resourced settings and humanitarian response plans roll out evidence-based, long-term strategies to mitigate COVID-19 epidemics and future epidemics, starting now. By supporting and utilising the local response and guidelines through our DICE training, we will strengthen the current response on the ground in partnership with IOM.”
–Georgia Venner, Project Manager, Doctors Worldwide
"What better way to start a training programme in emergency healthcare than in a global health emergency? This project has been months in the making with meticulous designing of timetables and schedules, and then the unexpected happened, which scuppered all our plans. But it is testament to the principles of emergency healthcare which we aim to teach throughout the year, that we have been able to start this project on time. Managing cases with limited information, expecting the unexpected, but most importantly making simple interventions at the right time have proven to work well both in the emergency health care setting and now in the emergency teaching setting. I do hope that by the end of this programme, both participants and patients will benefit equally."
–Dr Mir Saaduddin Ahmad – DICE Programme Director, Doctors Worldwide
The DICE programme will contribute to the development of Bangladesh’s health system in emergency care in response to the Rohingya crisis, as well as introduce and build long-term emergency care provisions for the local host communities.
To get involved with DICE whether as a deployed volunteer or content developer, please contact Imogen on info@doctorsworldwide.org
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