Teens gain from important messages of PARTY program

NEWS RELEASE

SAULT AREA HOSPITAL

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SAH re-launches PARTY program

(October 16, 2012) – Sault Area Hospital (SAH) has re-launched an injury prevention program targeted at teens which focuses on making smart and safe choices.

The first session will be held at SAH on Friday, October 19.

The Preventing Alcohol and Risk-Related Trauma in Youth program, or PARTY, introduces Grade 10 students from area high schools to the consequences of drinking and driving and focuses on what happens following a motor vehicle accident.

Each PARTY session brings a group of 30 students to the hospital for a full day of lectures and demonstrations.

Presenters throughout the day include paramedics, physiotherapists, SAH staff and physicians, Algoma Public Health and many others.

“The program gives the students a sense of what it is like to suffer a traumatic injury,” says Tricia Scornaiencki, emergency nurse clinician and PARTY program coordinator for SAH. “Students observe the full spectrum of care for traumatic injuries, from the emergency room through to rehabilitation and they also have an opportunity to meet injury survivors.”

Attendees also participate in physiotherapy activities that demonstrate physical, communication and thinking challenges associated with spinal cord injuries.

SAH offered the PARTY program for several years beginning in 2004 and has now re-launched this injury prevention initiative.

“We took a break while settling into the new hospital and now we are pleased to once again offer this worthwhile program to the young people in our community,” states Scornaiencki.

The PARTY program was initially developed by a group of Emergency Room nurses at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in 1986.

Since that time, it has spread to dozens of sites across Canada, as well as to the U.S., Japan, Germany, Brazil and Australia.

For further information, please go to the SAH website.

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