The disaster medicine team of the municipal non-profit enterprise of the Lviv Regional Council “Lviv Regional Centre for Emergency Medical Care and Disaster Medicine” took part in international Emergency Medical Teams (EMT) training held in the town of Kriftel in Germany. The training brought together around 150 specialists from various countries who practised coordination during humanitarian crises.
EMT are international emergency medical teams certified and coordinated by the World Health Organization. They are deployed to respond to large-scale emergencies, including earthquakes, floods, wars and epidemics. The participation of the Ukrainian team was made possible with the support of the Robert Koch Institute, a German state institution in the field of biomedicine and public health.
According to the training scenario, a powerful earthquake struck a fictional town with a population of almost 100,000 people. Participants trained in deploying a field medical unit, conducting medical triage of casualties, providing emergency care and coordinating actions with other international teams. The working language was English, which made the training as close as possible to the conditions of real missions under the auspices of WHO.
The head of the Centre for Emergency Medical Care, Andriy Vasko, spoke at the event about the work of Ukrainian medics in the conditions of full-scale war and the specific features of medical evacuation in Ukraine.
“We constantly have to adapt to new challenges and change our approaches to conducting rescue operations. Whereas previously air transport was widely used for medical evacuation, today a significant share of such transfers in Ukraine is carried out by rail,” said Andriy Vasko
The Centre emphasises that participation in such international training enables Ukrainian specialists to improve their practical skills, exchange experience with foreign colleagues and enhance coordination during emergency response.