Helping Babies Breathe Across Ghana

On 13 November and 15 November 2021, a course was held at the Ensign Global College of Public Health, in Kpong, Ghana. It was entitled “Helping Babies Breathe (HBB) Training of Trainers.” Its purpose was to teach local physicians, nurses, and midwives the skills of newborn resuscitation techniques to help increase the survival of newborn infants immediately after birth. The course was sponsored by The University of Utah, Ensign Global College, Latter-day Saint (LDS) Charities, and Helping Babies Breathe (HBB).

The course was conducted by a Team of Physicians, nurses, and others from the United States headed by Dr. Robert Clark from Utah, USA (HBB) along with his wife Anne. He has sponsored similar courses all around the world for over 30 years. Accompanying Dr. Clark was Dr. Richard Bell from California, USA, Dr. and Mrs. Lyrad and Alicia Riley from Colorado, USA, Scott and Karen Smith, humanitarian volunteers from Utah, USA, Ms. Ana Nast from the University of Utah, USA, where she is an MPH student, and Dr. Kendall Theide from Colorado, USA where she is a 3^rd year resident in Family Practice. Also present were Elder Randal Gibb, MD and his wife Sister Diane Gibb with Sister Tammie Mondragon, RN representing The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and LDS Charities. Edward Sutherland, MD, the medical director at Ensign College and Steve Alder, PhD., President of Ensign College. Professor of Public Health, University of Utah were also present.

The course involved intensive hands-on training for about 30 local medical professionals with the goal of teaching them the skills of newborn resuscitation and training them to become trainers themselves. They will then take their newly gained knowledge and experience back to their local hospitals and train others these techniques. At their graduation ceremony many of the students commented about how valuable and important the training was for them and their patients.

On 16 November 2021, the medical training team split up and went to three hospitals to observe training courses taught there by the students of the course. They were very successfully conducted and many more have already been trained. More training will be done by the trained students in the future allowing for significant improvement in newborn infant survival in Ghana.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints provided the training materials, including resuscitation manikins for all the hospitals represented to be used in their training courses. Many thanks to the University of Utah, Ensign Global College, Helping Babies Breathe, and LDS Charities for the sponsorship of this course.