Saudi Nurses Get Training on Disaster Management

Lulwa Shalhoub, Arab News

JEDDAH, 30 November 2007 — Eighteen Saudi nurses have completed a three-year training program in Japan, a Ministry of Health official said recently. This three-year program consisted of various workshops for teaching different areas of the field, such as disaster response and forensics. "The Saudi-Japanese partnership serves as an instrument for the development of a three-year program leading to the professional and personal development of Saudi nurses in areas of nursing education and disaster-nursing management," said Dr. Muneera Al-Osaimy, director general of the General Directorate of Nursing at the Ministry of Health. Disaster nursing was the main issue of discussion during the Second Scientific Symposium for Disaster Nursing Management that took place at King Fahd General Hospital on Tuesday. "The basic topic today is about disaster nursing, which is convenient to be discussed at this time of the year before the Haj season," said Ryuichi Tomizawa, resident representative of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) at the Embassy of Japan in Riyadh. "This training gives the opportunity for these nurses to utilize their knowledge in disaster nursing during Haj when many accidents happen." He said that disaster-nursing project focuses on the procedures in treating injured people at accident sites and in establishing triage to diagnose and identify more seriously injured persons. "Japan's government has been very cooperative in developing human recourses," said Toshimitsu Ishigure, consul general of Japan in Jeddah. "We have no oil or mineral resources so we are keen on developing our people. That is why we are happy to cooperate with Saudi Arabia to develop its human resources." Al-Osaimy said that Japan is known for dealing with natural disasters, like earthquakes and volcanoes, and that the ministry was correct when it chose Japan for disaster nursing training. "Nurses who underwent the three-year program are now capable of proper planning to deal with accidents that might occur, especially during Haj," said Tomizawa