Over the next two months, the Barbados Defence Force (BDF) Field Medical Team (FMT) facility will be at the National Stadium, Waterford, St. Michael, as its members prepare for the Type 2 classification.
Once verified, it would allow the unit to respond to local, regional, and international emergencies as a general hospital offering surgical and in-patient care on a 24-hour basis.
These were among the points outlined by Medical Liaison Officer with the BDF, Major David Clarke, during a press conference at the National Stadium on Thursday.
“We will be at the National Stadium for a while as we have a number of training courses over the next couple of months, including a training course for the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA).
“We will also be involved with [Exercise] Tradewinds and as CARPHA’s response mechanism, we are a field hospital as required if anything happens during the T20 Cricket World Cup,” he said.
Major Clarke explained that the current set up of tents at Waterford, St. Michael, was designed to show all the systems, equipment and packing list which would be needed should there be a need to deploy.
“We have our mentor Luis de la Fuente from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in Washington. He is visiting with us; we set up the hospital facility so that he can look at our systems and go through,” he said.
Major Clarke explained that the BDF FMT was presently classified as a Type 1 facility, having received the designation by the World Health Organization (WHO) in September 2019.
He added that the facility would have to undergo a reclassification exercise every five years. “We are in the process of preparing for our reclassification, but we also want to do our Type 2 accreditation which will make us a general,” he said.
Regional Advisor, Emergency Medical Teams with PAHO, Luis de la Fuente, also explained that the WHO/PAHO classification was a process where the national emergency medical teams could improve their capacities and capabilities to deploy internationally to support other countries during emergencies, disasters, or a pandemic.
He added that the mentoring process was expected to be completed in another eight weeks, after which there would be a pre-verification process that would determine if the BDF FMT is ready to receive the international mission.
“Once they are pre-verified, the international mission coordinated with the WHO, including technical experts from around the world, would come for two to three days and check the structure, all the procedures, the equipment, list of supplies,” Mr. de la Fuente pointed out.
Once they pass that process, the expert team would then propose that the WHO classify the BDF FMT as an international Type 2 facility.
“This would be a turning point for the Caribbean. They (BDF FMT) would be the first emergency medical team with surgical and in-patient capacity to be classified in the Caribbean. If any future emergency should happen, they would have the capacity to deploy a mobile hospital for in-patient and specialised clinical care,” the Regional Advisor explained.