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Terry Waite opens Trauma Research Centre

Date: 17 May 2000
Our ref: 549
 

The Aberdeen Centre for Trauma Research, funded by the University of Aberdeen and Grampian Primary Care NHS Trust, was formally opened by Terry Waite, CBE  at 11.30 am today, Wednesday 17 May 2000.

The Centre was established last year to provide an opportunity for high quality research into various aspects of trauma, as well as for encouraging evidence-based clinical practice.  In addition to its research responsibilities, the Centre will also provide training courses to heighten awareness of the impact of trauma and of how to deal with survivors of trauma and their families.  The Centre works closely with the Traumatic Stress Clinic, also based on the site of the Royal Cornhill Hospital, Aberdeen.

Centre Director, Professor David Alexander said:  “I am delighted that Terry Waite has agreed to perform this opening ceremony for us.  I have known Terry Waite for a number of years, and I have always found him to be a genuinely sincere and compassionate man.  Somehow, he has managed to translate his own extended experience as a hostage in Beirut into a learning experience (albeit a painful one) such that all of us can learn from it.”

Terry Waite has worked as an Adviser to the Archbishop of Uganda before and during the Amin period, and he has worked in Africa, Asia and South America developing medical and health programmes.  In addition to having been the Adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury, he is President of Emmanus, an organisation for the homeless; a Trustee of the Butler Trust which helps prisoners; and he is a Member of the Advisory Council for Victim Support.

Recently, Mr Waite was in Minsk to help set up a project to produce books for children blinded in the Chernobyl disaster.  He has had long experience of working with hostages and their families and, most recently, this work took him to Columbia in South America.

Terry Waite warmly welcomed the establishment of the Aberdeen Centre for Trauma Research:  “I know from my own personal experience how timely intervention by skilled practitioners can help victims of trauma.

“Scotland is fortunate to have the services of David Alexander and his team.  I am confident they will enable many to live full and satisfying lives as well as making a unique contribution to research into this vital subject.”

Aberdeen is ideally placed to provide both research into and clinical support for victims of trauma.  Unusually in the UK, one hospital site houses all the main medical and surgical facilities required to deal with trauma.  In addition, since the Piper Alpha oil platform disaster in 1988, there have been unusually good relationships between the surgical specialties and the psychiatric services, and Professor Alexander is internationally recognised as an authority on the identification, prevention and treatment of post-traumatic conditions.

Professor Alexander explained:  “We are extremely fortunate that both the Centre for Trauma Research and Traumatic Stress Clinic are essentially next door to each other.

“This enables researchers to feed their results immediately into the work of the Clinic and, in turn, clinicians provide researchers with information which the Centre can pursue.  Moreover, several of the clinicians are themselves researchers and this has obvious benefits.

“The shared aim of these two enterprises is to improve patient care following trauma,” continued Professor Alexander.  “Most folk have no idea what a serious accident or assault does to victims and their families.  It can turn their world upside down.

“I have no time whatsoever for the argument – ‘we didn’t have all this kind of help in my day.’  I wonder if the same people who said that would also want us to discontinue blood transfusion, antibiotics and transplantation – after all society managed to survive without them as well?

“One of the things we are keen to develop here in Aberdeen is the ‘triage approach’ to the treatment of patients.  We want to identity high risk patients in order that we can dedicate our time and energies to helping them.  We are lucky here in Aberdeen to have clinical specialists in the Departments of Surgery, Plastic Surgery and Accident and Emergency Medicine who are very sympathetic to psychiatric aspects of trauma care.”

Professor Alexander continued:  “We are keen, however, not just to focus on hospital patients; we are keen to work with our local general practitioners who have to contend with many of the after-effects of tragedies and accidents experienced by their patients.

“We also strongly believe in early intervention.  This allows us to reassure patients that their reactions are normal given what they have been through and to describe the kind of reactions they might experience in the longer term.  Our evidence suggests that patients and their families really welcome this approach.”

The Centre has established active links with community groups to facilitate the effective care of victims of trauma and their families through the Trauma Interest Group.  This Group involves representatives of about 12 mainly volunteer organisations, including BRAVO (Befriend Road Accident Victims Organisation), CRUSE, Victim Support, Women’s Aid and the Red Cross.

This Group provides a forum for all those organisations which deal with trauma in the community, enabling them to identify key issues, and to develop joint teaching and training initiatives.  This link between the voluntary and professional agencies which deal with psychiatric and psychological consequences of trauma, is of mutual benefit.

ENDS
 

NOTES TO EDITORS

Since the Aberdeen Centre for Trauma Research began operating, Professor Alexander and his colleagues have been involved in numerous activities, both in the UK and overseas.

They have run training seminars for the Scandinavian Airlines Service on the management of victims of major traumas; they have been asked to contribute to a revised selection and training scheme for the Scottish Ambulance Service, and Professor Alexander lectures regularly on trauma management and hostage negotiation to various police forces and the Scottish Police College.

Professor Alexander has lectured regularly at the FBI Academy in the USA and at the Russian School of Militia.  He has also been involved in number of major catastrophes including the Piper Alpha oil platform disaster, the Chinook helicopter crash, the Ural’s train disaster in Russian and, most recently,  he was appointed Adviser to the Kenya Medical Association following the terrorist bombing in Nairobi.
 

Further information from:
Christine Cook, Executive Director of Public Relations, Tel:  01224 272014
John Miller, Communication and Community Affairs Manager, Grampian Primary Care NHS Trust,
 Tel:  01224 414123
 

University Press Office on telephone +44 (0)1224-273778 or email a.ramsay@admin.abdn.ac.uk.