Start of the Advanced First Aid Training SHS

Hello everybody,

Last week we started the Advanced First Aid Training with the group students which have done the Basic Training last year with Nienke and Diede. We chose some subjects for this training which will give depth to the basic training and some new subjects. We developed a whole new course with subjects as CPR, gunshot wounds, stab wounds, animal bites and stings, Rabies, burns and fractures. The students are very enthusiastic about the training, especially subject as gunshot wounds and stab wounds they would like to have teached. 

  
As well the basic training is still very nice. The students are enthusiastic and curious about everything we learn them. They are full of good interesting questions and we can see that they learn a lot. Sometimes they arrive in class and tell us they used the first aid which we have teached them! That’s what makes us enthusiastic as well. Last Tuesday we did a quiz with the students. We had some sweets as prices and that made them very fanatic. It was nice to see how the liked the competition. 

As well we have been to the celebration of Freedom Day at Sinenjongo High School. The students did some fund raising for the school and for teachers who lost their jobs. They sold a lot of food and drinks and they did some dancing, singing and they red some poets about Freedom. It was very interesting and inspiring. It was very funny to see how the students like to eat just the feet of the chicken. Not the legs or another part of the chicken, but just the feeds. They told us we should try it as well, but that part of the day we skipped. 

   
     Unfortunately we just have one month left to finish this project and make it to a good end. So the next four weeks we are busy developing and finishing the advanced course, we will make summaries of the theory for the students and we will do some tests to check their knowledge about first aid. 
Cheers, 

Marleen and Floortje

Continuing the e-learning

Hi everyone,

A month has progressed in our project and we would like to give you an update about what happened! First of all we’d like to state that we are still having a wonderful time in South-Africa. There is a lot to do in your free time around here… things we could have never done if we had graduated in the Netherlands.

At the moment we are in the 10th week of our project and things are really starting to piece together. We’ll give you an update on both of the hospitals.

N1 City
In march we still had some training sessions left in which we guided some nurses who had a late start in the e-learning. They would come to an area in the hospital where internet was available and work on the modules for a couple of hours until it was (nearly) finished. Even in their free time(!). At the end of march all the nurses of the pilot group had finished their module. We had an evaluation with our supervisor and the clinical facilitators of the N1 City hospital about how it was experienced and what the future would look like.
The clinical facilitators were enthusiastic about the blended learning and they had heard positive signals from the nursing staff. What we experienced as well was that almost all the nurses were enthusiastic about the e-learning and many of them were quick to catch up on the material. All that was left now was the practical assessments of the e-learning modules which was still the question how this would be organized. Probably there will be simulation rooms where the nurses can put their theory into practice for the module Enteral Feeding. They would like for us to join as well in this simulation. The N1 City hospital has a busy month in April with different kinds of quality projects going on so as of now we haven’t heard when these sessions are going to be held. Our focus now is more at the GSH hospital and our graduation product.

GSH
For the nurses we are now in the 6th week of the e-learning. Our biggest struggle this time is that the e-learning still isn’t available on the intranet of the hospital. This means that the nurses cannot go onto the e-learning in their ward or clinic. Only a place with an internet connection is able to go on the e-learning. This means that our only possibility is to continue the sessions at the internet café which we have been doing since the beginning.
Every day there is a time slot and nurses can join in the time slot of their pavilion or, when applicable, join in another session on another day of that week. After the first month we had a cut-off for the nurses to join the e-learning, because otherwise the nurses wouldn’t have had enough time to finish a module before the practical exams started. In total there should be around 60 nurses who attended at least 1 session and that we are trying to let them all finish their modules with a good score! We keep track of the nurses with our registration list and keep on communicating with the clinical facilitators about which nurses didn’t come to a session so we can try and reach out to them again. Hooray, some nurses already finished the theoretical part of the blended-learning! It’s really nice if the nurses are very happy with their result because of their hard work. We are also very proud of them :).

The last few weeks we’ve also been busy with out quality proposal which is about the continuity and sustainability of the e-learning project. This is also a lot of work in terms of brainstorming about strategies, writing chapters and doing interviews with people from the hospitals.

From the 11th of May we are having our practical exams in the skillslab of UCT which is situated in the hospital. The nurses will either be doing the BLS or IV-therapy so that they can finish their module. After this we have our certificates ceremony! What we have experienced so far is that time seems to be flying here in Cape Town… in only 5 weeks we are already finished with this project. We are looking forward to see the nurses finish the e-learning and to see the fruits of our labour 🙂

If you have any questions, please let us know!

The internet café at GSH

A session at Netcare N1 City hospital

Sunset in South-Africa!