9-1-1 Cox’s Bazar: Ambulances to Save Lives in a Refugee Crisis

Community Partners International (CPI) is working with HOPE Foundation for Bangladesh (HOPE) to provide ambulance services for the Rohingya refugee population in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. CPI is helping HOPE to operate a fleet of three ambulances ready to respond day or night to medical emergencies in the refugee camps and transport patients quickly and safely to an appropriate health facility for specialist care. As well as upgrading the HOPE ambulances, CPI is helping to equip, support and train the ambulance staff.

On May 31 and June 1, CPI organized an Emergency Medicine workshop for 18 HOPE midwives and paramedics who staff their ambulances. The workshop focused on basic life support techniques to help these first responders give patients the best chance of survival in an emergency. Participants learned about and practiced cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), rescue breathing, bag-valve-mask use, airway management, hemorrhage control and tourniquet use.

Through this unique collaboration, HOPE’s ambulance teams are now better prepared to medical emergencies in Cox’s Bazar. To date, the teams have encountered a wide range of cases in their work encompassing obstetric emergencies such as obstructed labor, preeclampsia, and birth asphyxia as well as traumatic injuries, severe abdominal pain, severe malnutrition, pneumonia, malaria and dog bites.

CPI is also working with HOPE to develop a tailored health application for handheld devices that their ambulance teams can use to track patient cases and identify trends in medical emergencies in the Rohingya communities in Cox’s Bazar.