And the Training goes on and on and on . . . . . .

You all know about the Neonatal Resuscitation Training Program that the church sponsors throughout the world. We hosted the program last October here in Kinshasa and in Brazzaville. See our August 2007 blog.

While doing the follow-up to the program we realized that those physicians and nurses who had been trained were perpetuating the training far beyond their own centers. Many people had been trained but were without the resuscitation kits to practice their new found skills. We submitted an Area Project for 100 resuscitation kits to give to these newly trained centers.

The other day we met with Dr. Ngoy from St Joseph’s hospital. We wanted to give him 4 kits to share with any of the centers he had trained. He invited us to a session he was having the next week where he was training 35 people from 30 centers around Kinshasa. We told him we would bring him 31 more kits for his training session. He was elated and told us this was an answer to his prayer.

We went to the Dr. Ngoy’s training session and were delighted to see the teaching method being passed on to 35 birthing attendants, nurses and midwives. The instruction was being given by Dr. Ngoy and another doctor who had also been in the original training in August. The session was patterned after the training they had received from Dr. Preece and the team. This was confirmation that the NRT Program was truly successful. Perpetuation of the training is the key.
Well we submitted for a new NRT project for 2008 and we have approval. We have plans to take the training to Lubumbashi on the other side of the DRC. We have found a champion there who had never heard of the program and was very escited to get involved. He will help us set up the program and Dr. Preece will come and help us with the arrangements in June. While he is here we plan to have a special training session for the Kingasani hospital here in Kinshasa. Kingasani births more babies in a month than any other hospital. They give a large amount of charity care and have other centers besides their main hospital. This hospital has yet to participate in the NRT training but we hope by doing a special training for them we can guarantee that every person attending births in their system can be competent in the NRT program. Dr. Preece will conduct this training and use some of the doctors he trained last August who are carriny on the training.

Dr. Preece will return with a team to the DRC before we finish our mission so we can do the training in Lubumbashi. Got to love this program. In the words of Marie Josee, a nurse in Luputa who called us one Sunday morning very excited to tell us that because of the training she received on NRT, they were saving babies in Luputa.
WELL THE NRT PROGRAM IS SAVING BABIES IN THE DRC AND WE HOPE WE CAN MAKE SURE EVEN MORE BABIES GET SAVED.

Today Dr. Ngoy cancelled an appointment with us because he was busy training again. He was so excited. He said that this morning they were delivering babies and two babies were born who refused to breath. In the past they would have just pronounced them dead and moved on with heavy hearts but today they followed the algorythum set up by the NRT program and both babies started breathing. Their APGAR scores were good and they felt like they would be fine healthy babies. He praised the program and expressed his appreciation for the new skills he had learned that he felt were making such a difference in their maternal health practice. It seems to prove the theory that if you give people good training and the right equipment they can do their job, be proud of what they are doing and most of all love what tyou are doing.

Hooray for the NRT program!!!