New rescuers of Gubat, Sorsogon finish 4 days training; No hope for sacked seasoned rescuers for re-hiring

After kicking out 17 highly trained disaster personnel, Gubat town held a 4-day training for “greenhorns”, hastily recruited personnel to become soon-to-be frontline disaster responders amid public outcry that Gubat emergency personnel had not responded to distress calls owing to untrained personnel.

The sacked disaster personnel’s work contracts were not renewed due to politics, when the new Mayor moved into office, bringing his “own people” in the disaster response office.

The MDRRMO of Gubat, Sorsogon conducted the four-day training of Standard First Aid and Basic Life Support – Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation for new members of the Gubat Emergency Response Team (GERT), together with other support staff from various offices of the LGU, and PNP.

The Philippine Red Cross, which has been a long-time partner of the office in providing skills regarding Safety Services, led the training.

The training was hoped to serve as a foundation towards a higher level of knowledge and skills in Emergency Medical Services and Rescue.

This new disaster personnel training was conducted after 17 highly trained disaster personnel lost their jobs owing to local politics.

When the new, inexperienced faces in the frontline of emergency response took over, problems had started pouring in.

In the past weeks, criticisms have rained down on the Local Government of Gubat due to inaction to emergency and medical requests at the MDRRMO.

On the last training day, the participants underwent simulation exercises (Simex) after planning how to respond to the “mass casualty incident (MCI)” scenario.

The goal of this Simex is for each participant to make a sound and correct decision in providing competent first aid and pre-hospital care to victims of emergencies.

Closing the training program, the Chapter Administrator of the Philippine Red Cross – Sorsogon, Mr. Jonathan Regondola strongly reminded the participants that the completed training is just the beginning of the responsibility to be taken.