Author: Jordan Doherty.
Hero Rebecca receives flowers from Sarah-Louise McNally who is the Connected Health manager for Finaghy.
A West Belfast health worker has been hailed a hero by her work colleagues after saving her client’s life.
Rebecca Murphy, 28, is part of Connected Health team who provide domiciliary healthcare services for people living at home in the community.
Last week on entering the home of her client in Finaghy, Rebecca found the woman unresponsive and finding it very hard to catch a breath.
Rebecca’s instinct was to use the first aid training that Connected Health had taught her until the ambulance arrived. The paramedics have stated that if Rebecca had been even five minutes later, the woman would not be here today. Rebecca is the only person that calls to the woman as she has no family.
Rebecca has described how she went into the house, and found her client.
“Basically, when I walked in, I saw that the client was unresponsive and couldn’t really breathe, and I knew I had to act immediately,” she said.
“I immediately phoned emergency services and followed my own training and the advice they were giving me on the call. By the time they had arrived at the house she had thankfully started to come round a little bit.”
In the immediacy of the moment, Rebecca said she was “in shock I suppose”.
“But the adrenaline took over and I knew what had to be done. I am so happy she’s okay.”
Rebecca added: “This experience has given me a lot of confidence in my work and my hopes to be a nurse. It was my duty to care for the woman, so that’s all I did.”
Connected Health commented: “Connected Academy, our dedicated learning space for health and social care workers, wants to ensure all our carers are equipped with the same life-saving skills Rebecca was able to use. We aim to improve carers’ skills and knowledge, which will improve the quality of care for clients and raise the standards of care”.
“At Connected Academy, we offer a range of training courses for the Health and Social Care sector, all of which comply with the mandatory training requirements of the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) as well as the standards of the Northern Ireland Social Care Council (NISCC). We provide training to health and social care employees throughout UK and ROI. All of our training is OCN certified, and we have teamed up with OCN NI to develop a framework of accredited courses, from basic level 1 to level 5 (HND / foundation degree level). This ensures that all Connected Health carers are fully supported in their career development and able to respond to any incidents which might arise on their calls. We also provide leadership and management courses for all sectors”.
