On Saturday 17 October, three CFA staff members volunteered their time to assist with the Emergency Management of Severe Burns course held this year at the Royal Children’s Hospital.
Station Officer Andrew Smith from Pakenham, Qualified Firefighter Rob McVey from Geelong City and Qualified Firefighter Alistair Le Serve from Hallam joined this year’s participants to act as patients for the clinical assessment requirement of the program.
For Rob and Alistair it was their first time and both thoroughly enjoyed the experience, which has no doubt given them an insight into providing further care to burn injury patients and builds on their basic first-aid training.
Andrew had already successfully completed the course some years ago and was back for the second time as a patient. The course is part of on-going training for medical staff from Australia and overseas with this year seeing participants from Australia, Philippines, Brazil and Hong Kong attending the course.
All three CFA members would like to thank the staff from the Royal Children’s Hospital and Alfred Hospital burns units for allowing them to participate at this year’s course.
If you'd like information on the treatment of burn injuries, check out the new link on the CFA intranet page and public website www.vicburns.org.au which has information on burn injury first-aid and a number of downloadable documents.
For further information contact Station Officer Andrew Smith at Pakenham Fire Station.
Author: Andrew Smith