Health
Emergency response training will save lives in Bayelsa — Commissioner
By LInus Effiong
The Bayelsa State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Seiyefa Brisibe, has said the training of secondary school students and teachers in emergency response will help save lives and shorten response time to medical emergencies in the state.
Brisibe stated this on Thursday while speaking during a three-day emergency response training organised by FIRST Exploration & Petroleum Development Company Limited and the NNPC Limited/FIRST E&P Joint Venture, in partnership with the Health Emergency Initiative, in Yenagoa.
The programme trained over 100 secondary school students and 50 secondary school teachers from public schools in Bayelsa State in first aid, cardiopulmonary resuscitation and other emergency response skills.
The commissioner said the initiative was part of the state government’s broader efforts to strengthen healthcare delivery and increase life expectancy among residents.
He said Bayelsa ranked sixth among states in health spending in the first quarter of 2026 but ranked first in health investment on a per-capita basis.
Brisibe said the state invested about N9bn in healthcare during the period, while the leading state invested more than N36bn.
According to him, the figures demonstrated the commitment of the Governor Douye Diri administration to improving healthcare and the quality of life of Bayelsans.
“This is an investment that is here to save lives and shorten our response time to medical emergencies,” Brisibe said.
He stressed that time was critical in medical emergencies, particularly cardiovascular cases, where intervention within the first few minutes could determine whether a victim survived.
The commissioner said training young people to respond appropriately to emergencies would help create a culture of responsible intervention in schools, homes and communities.
He disclosed that the state government planned to expand the training beyond schools to public institutions and communities.
Brisibe said the next phase would involve focal persons from the judiciary, legislature and ministries, particularly those working in public spaces, while community leaders would subsequently be trained.
“We’re going to have representatives from the judiciary, we’re going to have representatives from the legislature, and from all ministries, most especially in public spaces,” he said.
He said the government was also introducing new programmes at the Bayelsa State College of Health Technology to strengthen emergency medical services.
According to him, diploma programmes in emergency medical technology and paramedics, as well as physiotherapy, had been introduced at the institution.
Brisibe said the physiotherapy programme would also help integrate traditional bone setters into the formal healthcare system by teaching them when to refer patients and when certain injuries should not be manipulated.
Earlier, the Executive Director and founder of HEI, Paschal Achunine, said the initiative was aimed at changing the attitude of bystanders from recording emergencies on social media to taking proactive steps to save lives.
Achunine said the participants were trained in basic first aid, CPR and other pre-hospital skills, stressing that early intervention could improve the survival chances of accident victims and people suffering cardiovascular emergencies.
“Our expectation is that as opposed to the current practice, where people take pictures and videos and put them on social media when an emergency happens, we’ll see more proactive response, a robust response from young people,” he said.
The HEI founder said more than 30 per cent of deaths in Nigeria occurred during the pre-hospital stage, describing the training as a proactive effort to address preventable deaths.
He disclosed that HEI had operated a post-crash care programme since 2017 through partnerships with organisations including the Federal Road Safety Corps and hospitals, providing up to N100,000 deposit support for critically injured crash victims taken to hospitals.
He said the first responders’ training was designed to complement the intervention by ensuring that appropriate lifesaving action was taken before victims reached hospitals.
“This is a further sweetener to ensure that not only when people are critical, but at the early phase of that pre-hospital emergency, more lives can be saved,” Achunine said.
He also disclosed that HEI had partnered with the Nigeria Educational Research and Development Council to integrate emergency health education into the school curriculum.
Achunine said approval had been obtained from the relevant authorities to introduce the programme into composite subjects in primary and secondary schools.
Also speaking, the Executive Director, Corporate Services, FIRST E&P, Emmanuel Etomi, said the company supported the initiative because timely intervention during emergencies could determine whether a victim survived.
Etomi said, “During a medical emergency, road traffic accident, cardiac arrest, or other life-threatening incident, the difference between life and death can be measured in minutes.”
He said there was a need to ensure that people within communities knew what to do before professional help arrived, adding that the students and teachers could become the first point of assistance during emergencies in schools, homes and communities.
Etomi described the training as an investment in community resilience, saying the knowledge acquired could turn helplessness into informed action and potentially save lives.
He also disclosed that HEI was among the five inaugural beneficiaries of Impact FIRST: Heritage, a multi-year funding programme launched by the NNPC Limited/FIRST E&P Joint Venture to support organisations with proven impact and sustainable delivery models.
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