First aid training will save lives in remote areas of UAE, experts say

Ahmed Al Hajeri, Deputy chief executive of the National Ambulance, speaks at the Remote Healthcare Middle East conference in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday. Delores Johnson / The National

ABU DHABI // Training members of the public to administer first aid in an emergency would help to save lives in remote areas that are difficult to reach by ambulance, health experts say.

Providing ambulances to large and sparsely populated areas such as the Northern Emirates or the Western Region is difficult, with the nearest medical centre sometimes up to an hour’s drive away.

“In rural areas, ambulances can be located within 20 to 30 kilometres of population centres, while in urban areas it is within 5km depending on the number of calls we are getting,” said Ahmed Saleh Al Hajeri, deputy chief executive officer of the National Ambulance Service.

Training civilians in first aid would play a key part in helping emergency crews by not only stabilising the victim but also by providing paramedics more information about the situation.

Dr Mohammed Qaddoura, chief executive officer at LLH healthcare management, agreed.

“First-responder training is very important so that the patient can be attended before the ambulance arrives. For this workshops are required,” said Dr Qaddoura, speaking at the Remote Healthcare Middle East conference being held on Tuesday and Wednesday at The Westin hotel.

Ambulances reach about 90 per cent of emergency calls within eight minutes, Mr Al Hajeri said. However, the government and health officials were aiming to cut this response time to just four minutes.

“We are doing better than some countries in the West. In the UK, they are reaching 75 per cent of their calls within eight minutes, while we can reach 90 per cent of our calls within eight minutes,” Mr Al Hajeri said.

“Currently, about 2 to 3 per cent of our calls receive ambulances within four minutes. On average, our ambulances need to travel greater distances.”

The “Western Region needs the most attention” when it comes to health care and ambulance coverage, Dr Qaddoura said.

“Ambulances need to travel far. You can save lives for heart attacks and strokes within a ‘golden hour’. However, it’s challenging to take the patient within that hour. We see a lot of heart attacks and strokes, we see people die on site,” he said.

Among the challenges of providing fast responding health care in remote areas, aside from the distances to be covered, was a lack of readiness of some health centres to take trauma and emergency patients and a time-consuming licensing process to set up facilities, said Dr Qaddoura, which makes first-aid training in the community even more essential.

Sameera Al Obaidli, lead physician at Abu Dhabi Telemedicine Centre, said they received calls from “patients from across the UAE” with up to 30 per cent of these coming from rural areas.

“Thousands of patients who are in need of efficient and high quality medical guidance for even the most common health conditions don’t have easy access to health care.

“This is due to the distance from population centres where many healthcare professionals are located and rising levels of demand,” she said.

Mr Al Hajeri said the ambulance service was committed to continuous improvement, and was looking to hire more Emiratis to its ranks. “Changing mentalities is one of the biggest challenges. We need people to be brave and we need Emiratis to look at paramedics as a career in the community,” he said.