College nurses deal with emergency preparedness

Unprecedented. The time period has change into an satirically widespread method to describe many present occasions. Richmond County College Nurses have used the time period unprecedented to deal with emergency preparedness. “As nurses, we’re conscious of what to do in most emergency conditions, however there is just one nurse in most of our colleges so it’s necessary not just for us to be as ready as attainable, however for us to organize our first responder groups and different employees,” stated Leslie Corridor, Richmond County Faculties Lead Nurse.

The nurses lately accomplished a Cease The Bleed refresher course lead by Firsthealth of the Carolinas Emergency Companies Coaching Officer and Director. The primary explanation for preventable demise after an harm is bleeding, which is why Cease The Bleed trainings deal with packing wounds and making use of tourniquets. The refresher allowed the nursing crew to follow with tourniquet trainers and focus on triage conditions with native EMS.

Every faculty has acquired a completely stocked cellular emergency medical cart. Faculties had variations of first help trauma provides prior to now however encountered points with mobility of the provides or protecting all colleges stocked with an important emergency response supplies. “We frolicked reviewing suggestions on precedence first help provides for emergencies and stocked a package for every faculty with every part from trauma dressings and gauze to band aids and eye rinse,” stated Corridor. “These carts will give us the power to reply to medical emergencies rapidly which is so necessary in accidents the place time makes an enormous distinction.”

“College nursing is a lot extra now in 2023 than it was even 5 years in the past,” stated Wendy Kelly Jordan, director of pupil companies. “Our college nurses have weathered COVID-19, which created a posh and anxious faculty well being panorama. Extra lately, we’re seeing elevated cardiac associated emergencies amongst our faculty age inhabitants throughout the area, state and nation. We need to be ready to reply instantly and appropriately ought to now we have an emergency of any nature in our faculty district.”

A Cardiac Emergency Response Plan is the present initiative being applied by way of the well being crew. The statistics of a cardiac arrest occurring exterior the hospital are staggering, however CPR and entry to an AED can double and even triple a person’s likelihood of survival. All Richmond County Faculties buildings have no less than one AED with extra within the center and excessive colleges.

“We’ve recognized a few objectives together with making a crew of individuals ready to reply to a cardiac occasion, including signage in our buildings to make sure everybody is aware of the place to search out an AED, and practising AED drills very similar to we do fireplace drills,” stated Nurse Corridor.