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NEW DELHI:The Union Health Ministry has rolled out a training module on National Emergency Life Support (NELS) for doctors, nurses and paramedics. This training module will lead to the creation of a pool of trained doctors, nurses and paramedics in the country with skills to provide standardised emergency life support and reduce mortality due to medical emergencies.
The course is comprehensive and deals with the management of medical emergencies, surgical emergencies, cardiac emergencies, respiratory emergencies including ventilator management protocol for COVID-19 and other disease, trauma-related emergencies, obstetric emergencies, paediatric emergencies, snake bites, poisoning etc.
“Till now, health care professionals in the country had to rely on foreign modules and paid courses which were not only expensive but were also limited in scope to a handful of emergencies without considering the needs and priorities of our population landscape. This NELS provides standardised curriculum which is based on Indian context and developed in India," said Dr Bharati Pravin Pawar, union minister of state for health and family welfare while releasing the training module.
Pawar highlighted that the government is committed to continuous strengthening of delivery of Covid-19 and non-Covid essential health services with enhancing capacities to manage medical emergencies.
The National Health Policy of 2017 talks about the creation of a unified emergency response system with a network of emergency care having provision of life support ambulances and trauma management centres.
The activities under the NELS entail developing emergency life support training modules for doctors, nurses and paramedics after the consultation with the experts based on the Indian context. It also highlights the ways of setting up and equipping skill centres in medical colleges under Center and States to impart skill-based training on emergency life support for all categories of health functionaries.
The Centre has directed the states to send proposals for establishing NELS Skill Centres at their medical colleges and said to ensure that trainings are not only operationalised but also utilised to the maximum extent to improve the quality of emergency care services in a state.