The First Responder Coalition of Sierra Leone (FRCSL) is a

coalition A coalition is a group formed when two or more people or groups temporarily work together to achieve a common goal. The term is most frequently used to denote a formation of power in political or economical spaces. Formation According to ''A Gui ...

of Sierra Leonean and international organizations dedicated to expanding prehospital emergency care and developing

emergency medical services Emergency medical services (EMS), also known as ambulance services or paramedic services, are emergency services that provide urgent pre-hospital treatment and stabilisation for serious illness and injuries and transport to definitive care. ...

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierr ...

. It aims to address the high rates of injury and low rates of prehospital emergency care available in the country.

History

Deployed to explore the creation of prehospital emergency care systems in

, LFR International initially proposed a coalition to national partners to address the lack of prehospital emergency care available. The five founding member organizations later came together in

Makeni Makeni is the largest city in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone. The city is the capital of Bombali District, and is the economic center of the Northern Province. Makeni is the fifth largest city in Sierra Leone by population. The city of M ...

, a town in

Bombali District Bombali is a district in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone. Its capital and largest city is Makeni, which is also the largest city in the north. The Bombali district is one of the sixteen districts of Sierra Leone. Bombali is one of the lar ...

in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone, to establish a formal coalition, which was called the "First Responder Coalition of Sierra Leone." The Coalition's official mission is to "facilitate the development of emergency first responder programs to alleviate the burden of traumatic injury in Sierra Leone." The five founding members were the Sierra Leone Red Cross Society, LFR International, the

University of Makeni University of Makeni (formerly known as the Fatima Institute and often known as UNIMAK) is the first private, Catholic, university located in Makeni, Sierra Leone. History It was founded as the Fatima Institute on October 8, 2005, by the Emer ...

Agency for Rural Community Transformation Agency may refer to: Organizations * Institution, governmental or others ** Advertising agency or marketing agency, a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients ** Employment agency, a business that s ...

(ARCT), and Holy Spirit Hospital. The Red Cross was the initial chairing organization of the coalition. Members wrote a constitution to officially establish the coalition, which was formally signed into existence on June 27, 2019. Its signatories were Kpawuru Sandy (Sierra Leone Red Cross Society), Peter G. Delaney (LFR International), Alfred Harun Thullah (ARCT), Patrick E. Turay (Holy Spirit Hospital), and Shaza Dous (University of Makeni). The establishment of the FRCSL was seen as timely given the 72nd World Health Assembly's previous declaration that emergency care systems were essential to

universal health coverage Universal health care (also called universal health coverage, universal coverage, or universal care) is a health care system in which all residents of a particular country or region are assured access to health care. It is generally organized a ...

in May of the same year.

Projects

With a mission of training

first responder A first responder is a person with specialized training who is among the first to arrive and provide assistance or incident resolution at the scene of an emergency, such as an accident, disaster, medical emergency, structure fire, crime, or ...

s to treat casualties of accidents across the country and developing ambulatory emergency medical services across Sierra Leone, the Coalition began training

s in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone, in Makeni, in June 2019. Coalition members trained more than 1,000 community members over a two-month period and equipped each responder with basic trauma management skills and materials. Between July and December 2019, 4,529 lay first responders were trained in total in Makeni and surrounding areas in Bombali District. Knowledge improvement pre-/post-course for participants taking pre- and post-tests was 34.8% vs 78.3%, (''p''<0.0001), while median participant knowledge retention at 6 months, indicated by a test score remained high at 60.9%. By 9 months, median score had dropped to 43.5%. Comparatively, local instructor-led courses demonstrated median knowledge improvement pre- vs. post-course was 30.4 percentage points (21.7% vs 52.2%, ''p''<0.0001). Lay first responders trained by the FRCSL went on to treat 1,850 patients in the following six months, and used their skills in bleeding control most often in 61.2% of encounters. The most common patient encountered were young adult males (36.8%), while 48.7% of injury encounters were due to motorcycle accidents.

Members

* Sierra Leone Red Cross Society * LFR International *

(ARCT) * Holy Spirit Hospital

References

{{authority control Health in Sierra Leone Emergency medicine organisations

History

Projects

Members

See also

References