PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION

The Virgin Islands Department of Health did not have the facilities, equipment or personnel to provide continuous training and certification of EMTs and other health care professionals. To be certified, individuals had to be sent off the island for training. This proved costly and limited the number of people who could be trained. The Virgin Islands needed its own mechanism to train EMTs and health care professionals in CPR, first aid and trauma life support.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

The Virgin Islands Department of Health wanted to set up an EMS Training Institute to:

• Provide continuous training and certification to EMTs and other health care professionals
• Give required refresher training
• Train health care professionals from other Caribbean islands
• Provide first responder training to police, fire fighters, rescue workers, and other community groups.

The Department of Health also hoped that the Institute eventually would become financially self-sufficient through the revenues generated by providing training and other services to other Caribbean islands.

EMS Training (cont'd)

STRATEGIES AND ACTIVITIES

A Section 402 grant allowed the Virgin Islands Department of Health to set up the EMS Training Institute. This allowed for:

• Equipping classrooms with necessary materials
• Bringing in instructors to certify local workers in pediatric life support and trauma care
• Providing classes, both to certify workers and to provide refresher training
• Certifying local instructors who then were qualified to teach others
• Training people from neighboring islands.

RESULTS

Since the opening of the EMS Training Institute, the following results have been achieved:

• Approximately 1000 people are trained annually
• Over 1200 hours of training is provided annually
• Ten local instructors have been certified to teach
• Twenty people from neighboring Caribbean islands have been trained, with efforts being made to expand this service to all the islands in the Caribbean
• A paramedic team from the Virgin Islands won third place in a nation-wide competition against 60 other paramedic teams.