While basic first aid is important for everyone, it is particularly crucial for hotel staff. Hotels are not just places where guests check in, stay, and use facilities; staff also encounter emergencies. To improve service quality and ensure guest safety, more than 90 hotel employees in Thimphu are receiving training in essential first-aid skills.
Hotels are more than polished lobbies and busy kitchens. Staff often face injuries, sudden illnesses, or accidents involving guests or colleagues.
In many cases, staff call emergency services and wait rather than assess and manage the situation themselves. This is usually because they lack basic first aid training and confidence.
Research shows that timely and proper first aid can reduce the severity of a patient’s condition upon arrival at a hospital and can allow earlier discharge.
Over 90 hotel employees in Thimphu are now learning skills that could save lives.
This is the second day of the basic first aid training, part of the Bhutan Lifesavers programme, led by the Khesar Gyalpo University of Medical Sciences of Bhutan (KGUMSB).
Kipchu Tshering, an associate professor with KGUMSB said, “First aid is an important life skill for everyone. Whether at offices, homes, forests, or elsewhere, first aid can save lives before medical personnel and ambulances arrive. Depending on the emergency, the skill can provide crucial support.”
Participants are being trained to assess patients, manage unconscious individuals, perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), and treat bleeding and impaled objects.
The training also covers burns, bites, fractures, sprains, dislocations, infant choking, and ergonomics.
Kuenzang Thinley, the vice chairman of the Hotel and Restaurant Association of Bhutan said, “While hotels have safety measures in place, including first aid kits, comprehensive first aid training has been lacking. The purpose of this programme is to give our guests and employees confidence in their safety. It also aims to prevent unnecessary hospital visits for minor injuries or inconveniences.”
“We used to usually call the emergency toll-free number 112 directly. After this training, we are confident that we can give first aid to the victim who requires the service,” said Sangay Choephel, Participant from Hotel Migmar, Thimphu.
Another participant, Kelden Tshering from Star Residency, said, “While the training is currently being provided only to hoteliers, I believe everyone should have this skill because it is a life skill. In emergencies, the immediate help we can offer is first aid. This training equips us with the knowledge and skills to do that effectively.”
A similar programme was held for hotel staff in Paro last month. Plans are now underway to extend the training to Punakha, Phuentshogling, and other districts, with participant registration ongoing.
As more hotel staff gain the skills, emergencies would no longer be moments of helplessness, but opportunities to act and save lives.
Kelzang Chhophyel
Edited by Sangay Chezom
