Qatar Academy students learning CPR
By Ross Jackson/Staff Reporter

Qatar Academy held a basic life support training programme, in conjunction with staff from Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), last weekend to teach a group of ninth grade students emergency first responder skills.
The programme, which includes teaching life support skills, emergency first response, CPR, and rescue breathing, saw 31 student volunteers, about a third of the ninth grade, take part in a four-hour workshop on Saturday morning.
Tommie Hennard, a science teacher at Qatar Academy, hopes to expand the programme to include 11th graders, who can participate in a full International Red Cross certificated workshop.
In an interview with Gulf Times, Hennard explained: “My idea came from the International School of Stavanger in Norway where I worked for eight years as a teacher and administrator, and that happens to be the town where the resuscitation dummies and the automatic defibrillation devices were both invented. At that school we taught everyone from seventh grade up, all the students, all the staff, all the teachers, emergency first response and defibrillator skills, so I was used to that culture. And then, in 2006, we had a Dutch military officer primary school parent, who on the first day of school collapsed in the foyer. He literally collapsed a metre away from an AED (automated external defibrillator) in the midst of dozens of people who knew what to do, and as a result less than two minutes later his heart had been restarted and by the time the ambulance got there he was stabilised. That really made an impression on me as the kind of demonstrable, tangible good you could do by having a trained community. And so, my hope is that one day we’ll work up to that, but this is small first steps.”
The students responded enthusiastically to the training by HMC staff. Abdul Rahman, a ninth grade student who volunteered for the course, said that you never know when something could happen to a family member or friend, making this an important skill set when you need to use it.
Fellow student Nawal said that the course’s lessons are interesting because in a case of emergency, you can help anyone in need when you are walking down the street, when no one else can. This idea has raised her interest in the medical profession, because it is not only interesting but it is “nice helping people”.