The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

A NEUROTRAUMA workshop for Caribbean nurses was held to teach frontline medical providers how to accurately manage head and spine trauma.

Dr Myron Rolle, the facilitator of the workshop, launched the event in The Bahamas which he describes as his “home country”.

“It’s fitting to come home and do it here first and then we’ll advance to other CARICOM member states,” he said.

The neurosurgeon explained he brought a few Harvard nurses from Boston to be in New Providence as well as Grand Bahama.

“We know that in the academic nerve surgical literature that you have a four-hour window of managing these patients so you can prevent death or permanent disability and so we’re trying to equip these nurses with the tools and skills to do just that,” he explained.

Dr Rolle also spoke about a foundation that he started about two years ago which he said was born out of tragedy. In 2010, when he was playing professional American football for the Tennessee Titans in Nashville, Tennessee, Dr Rolle got a call from his cousin that his aunt had died.

“She was hit in the head by a car and didn’t receive urgent, immediate medical attention... at that time I was frustrated,” he told the audience.

“I was disappointed but I said to myself, I got motivated when I became a neurosurgeon... when I had the networks, when I had the belief of people like Dr Darville and others to do more and to try to fix this gap and fill this void with training, with policy, with education, with advance, with care then I will do that.”

Health and Wellness Minister Dr Michael Darville said he was delighted to know that “hundreds” of nurses in the capital and Grand Bahama will be trained on how to improve the immediate care delivered to patients with traumatic brain injury.

“I’ve worked in the emergency room. I’ve seen it at sites of accidents where our emergency medical services would come, not really paying close attention to what’s happening with the patient and as a direct result of poor care at the site create more long-term injury on recovery and so this particular workshop I believe will prove to be beneficial for our nurses and also beneficial to the delivery of healthcare systems throughout our archipelago,” Dr Darville said.

He added in his remarks: “The critical component of care and the ability to stabilise neurotrauma cases bridges the gap between injury and high-level neurosurgical care and has the potential to improve outcomes and save hundreds of lives. Dr Rolle, you and your team have brought an important topic to the table as we seek to transform and to provide quality healthcare and delivery systems throughout our healthcare system.”