When a medical emergency strikes, sometimes there is no time to wait for professional help to arrive on the scene—action is required immediately.
The Netcare 911 team recently had to help save the life of a newborn baby boy via video call. The infant was battling to breathe.
Netcare 911 critical care co-ordinator Janeldi Botha tells that the team received the emergency call for assistance. “Immediately we connected a video call with bystanders who were there with the mother and baby, which allowed us to see the baby and assess his condition remotely.”
As an initial step, they advised the person who was with the mother to stimulate the baby by drying him quickly and clearing the newborn’s airway. Still the baby was fighting for breath, and time was running out.
Video call assistance
Assisted by case manager Ayanda Mkhulisi, who is also part of the emergency operations centre team at Netcare 911, they took over the scene via video call using bystanders to assist.
“To make it as easy as possible for the person on the scene to follow the instructions, we demonstrated each step on an infant-sized mannequin and Ayanda explained every step to her in vernacular to eliminate any chance of misunderstanding when time was so critical for the baby’s survival.”
“With the baby positioned on his back on a firm surface, we used our infant mannequin to illustrate exactly where the compression placement should be and also showed the caller exactly how to tilt the head back and give the baby small rescue breaths, whilst she followed our instructions to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation,” Ayanda recalls.
“We are trained to manage the clinical situation and also to cope with the emotional stress that callers are understandably facing when confronted with an emergency like this. Using the video call allows us to communicate a lot of quite detailed information much more quickly than a phone call alone, and this means callers can understand and follow our instructions with greater precision. They are acting as our hands to save a life at the scene of the emergency before the professionals can arrive,” says Ayanda.
Emergency situations can be challenging
In an emergency, it can be challenging to recall the correct phone number or provide directions. The emergency call and geolocation functions on the Netcare App assist in minimising response times by connecting callers and ensuring that we have their precise location so the emergency vehicle can find them—even in remote areas or if the caller doesn’t know the address.
“We were absolutely overjoyed when, after 20 long minutes of continuous infant cardiopulmonary resuscitation, the newborn baby started making healthy cooing sounds, and we could see spontaneous breathing. He was out of danger, and so we asked the woman to focus on rubbing him to stimulate his blood flow and wrapping him up to keep him warm. We could hear the sirens in the background as our colleagues arrived on scene with an ambulance.
“It’s moments like these that make this one of the most rewarding jobs. For members of the public, you never know when you might be called on to be someone’s hero in their time of need, and we are here to hold your hand every step of the way,” Janeldi concludes.
The hands of ordinary South Africans with no prior medical training are delivering life-saving first aid thanks to a dedicated team at Netcare 911, who explain and demonstrate to emergency callers via video call exactly what to do and how to help the patient in life-threatening situations.
“When we arrive on duty, we never know what situation someone might need our help in. We have to be ready for anything,” says Ayanda.
Highly skilled emergency operators
The high-pressure nature of the job requires a highly skilled and passionate, multilingual emergency operations centre team. When a person calls Netcare 911, either on 082 911 or via the emergency button on the Netcare app, their call is answered by an inbound emergency operations centre co-ordinator who is trained in basic life support and takes the details of the emergency.
Whilst the inbound emergency operations centre co-ordinator locates and dispatches the closest emergency care vehicle to the scene of the emergency, the most time-sensitive cases may require clinical instruction to guide callers through initial life-saving actions until the ambulance arrives.
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