Awareness and First Aid
International Women's Day is an opportunity to applaud the valuable contributions and resilience of women in ER24.
Introducing Åsa Harlert, ER24’s Learning and Development Facilitator, Gauteng Region
and Contact Centres:
As an ER24 Learning and Development Facilitator, I thrive on interacting with all the staff. I share their great pride when they perform well and when improvements are implemented in the workplace. Paperwork is not my favourite, but I hope in the future I can spend more time with the crews at the branches and work shifts with them.
My daily tasks include planning and completing Workplace Skills Plan (WSP) training with ER24 practitioners. I also teach Basic Life Support training and Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support Training for ER24 and Mediclinic staff members. I’m involved with designing continuous professional development (CPD) courses and supporting the branch managers with any clinical concerns that arise.
After completing my BSc Honours in Medical Biochemistry in 1997 at Stellenbosch University, I became interested in emergency medical services (EMS) and rescue. I joined the EMS in 1998 and completed my National Diploma (NDip) in Emergency Care in 2002 at what was then Technikon Witwatersrand, qualifying as an Advanced Life Support practitioner.
I gained operations experience in South Africa, and later started lecturing on the NDip in Emergency Medical Care at Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), where I stayed for six years. I taught physiology, as well as emergency medical care, high-angle rescue, and general pathology. At this time, I joined ER24 as a part-time panel member to ensure I kept my clinical skills current while lecturing.
Since then, I’ve worked at various emergency care operational and site-based services. I took a break for 18 months when I fell pregnant with my son Connor, who’s now 10 years old, and joined the ER24 Training Department as a permanent staff member in December 2017. In 2019, I took up my current position.