MONROVIA, Liberia (Army News Service, Nov. 3, 2014) -- The Joint Forces Command -- United Assistance Defense Department Ebola Training Team, or DETT, graduated the first class of health care providers, who started work at Ebola treatment units, or ETUs, Oct. 31 at the National Police Training Center in Paynesville, Liberia.
The training consisted of eight to 10 days of hands-on and classroom instruction split in two phases, called the cold and hot phases.
The cold phase, conducted by the DETT, was composed of Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen trainers, led by Col. Laura Favand, DETT chief of training. The troops are training health care providers, not directly treating Ebola patients.
In the cold phase, students undertook five days of intense, repetitive training in a simulated ETU. The trainers went over every detail multiple times to ensure every volunteer learned and retained the necessary skills, said Lt. Col. Matt Fandre, the command surgeon for JFC-UA.
To make the training more realistic, the DETT constructed a maze of half-walled rooms that simulated areas in an actual ETU. Here the students went through multiple scenarios they might encounter and practiced routine procedures that are critical to controlling the spread of Ebola.
They also learned how to identify possible patients, admit them, and route them through the ETU correctly. In one training scenario, a student in the class mimicked varying degrees of the symptoms of Ebola while another student was being evaluated on whether or not he could correctly identify if the patient should be admitted.
To better prepare the health care workers, the DETT also brought in Ebola survivors to interact with the students, giving them first-hand accounts of what Ebola patients experience, said Fandre. This mentally prepared the volunteers for what they'll encounter.
The hot phase training is conducted by nongovernmental organizations, during which the students cared for Ebola patients for three to five days in an operational ETU under close supervision, he said.
Though the hot phase may seem intimidating, those feelings were alleviated by consistent, repetitive, hands-on training during the cold phase, said Sgt. Kevin Scranton-Chaney, a DETT trainer. The students are held to the highest standard of perfection.
Every technique, from sanitizing hands to taking off personal protective equipment, has to be perfect or it could mean more lives lost, said Scranton-Chaney. It's especially important because teaching one volunteer incorrectly can have a ripple effect among the other volunteers.
Initially, the training is for volunteers who will work in the ETUs, but it will change into a course for personnel who will also travel and teach these techniques, said Fandre. This will allow Liberians to continue the course without assistance.
The current form of training will continue weekly until it is no longer needed, said Fandre. Eventually the DETT will create a mobile training team that will travel with a transportable simulated ETU so that location will be less of an issue for those willing to volunteer.
In this first class, the DETT trained 58 healthcare workers, 12 support staff, and 21 cadre members in the first phase of the training program.
The NPTC is capable of training up to 200 health care workers a week.
OTHER NEWS
In other efforts to stop the spread of Ebola, Soldiers of the 2nd General Support Aviation Battalion, 501st Aviation Regiment, 1st Combat Aviation Brigade, 1st Armored Division, Fort Bliss, Texas, arrived at Roberts International Airport, Monrovia, with their UH-60L Black Hawk helicopters, Oct. 30.
The Task Force Iron Knight aviators will support the U.S. Agency for International Development effort to contain the Ebola virus disease in Liberia.
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