Joel Charles (July 13, 2020)
“I currently work at Global Medical Response of Trinidad and Tobago (the National Ambulance Service provider) in the capacity of Assistant Manager – Clinical QA/ QI, a position I’ve held for the past four years.
I’m also a certified Paramedic with various associated international accolades in Emergency Medical Healthcare inclusive of Instructional qualifications. I also hold the position of Secretary General/ Treasurer on the Council of the Emergency Medical Personnel Board.
I’m not only on the frontline, I lead the frontal assault.
On March 11th 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic and the sustained risk of global spread.
As a manager in the National Ambulance Service with responsibilities directly associated with clinical medical education and the implementation of associated processes designed by the management collective, the prioritization of my obligations were solely directed to COVID-19. This wasn’t limited to the Emergency Medical Technicians and Paramedics of GMRTT, but expanded to educational sessions/ training relative to the aforementioned pandemic undertaken at organizations outside of our staff, which were both parallel public and private entities.
The personnel of the National Ambulance Service managed by Global Medical Response were obviously marked to be those who predominantly would make potential contact with ‘patient zero’, however patient zero happened to be a 52 male who recently traveled to Switzerland and ‘self quarantined’ at home. This was the start of our local COVID-19 nightmare as many more presentations followed.
To date as a nation and a medical fraternity, we have only recorded 133 confirmed cases, with 120 recovered patients and only 8 deaths associated with the virus. I’m eternally grateful to God that none of these were my subordinates, who transported an undisclosed amount of these cases, as I had to personally monitor all of these interactions as part of the managerial collective.
Hats off to the local health care fraternity. To the ambulance personnel (both private and public), doctors, nurses, hospital personnel, airport personnel, police, coast guardsmen, firefighters and many more who stood in the gap for a nation truly blessed by God, I say thank you from the depths of my inner being.
To Fatima College, thanks for instilling in me the fundamentals of leadership from a tender age, which has inevitably made me the leader/ educator I am today.”
Joel Charles
EMT-P, AEMD, EMS Educator
Global Medical Response
Past Student
1992-1996
Joel….for all that you do, we thank and salute you!!!!