A team of four doctors, two Portuguese and two Portuguese-Ukrainians, is flying to Ukraine on Friday with a humanitarian mission to transport seriously ill patients, organized by the Medical Association (OM) with the support of the Ministry of Health.
Speaking to reporters in Porto today, Vitor Almeida, coordinator of the Ordem dos Médicos Humanitarian Assistance Office (GAHOM), explained that the mission includes three courses on transporting critically ill patients and will train doctors, nurses and ambulance technicians.
“The training is dedicated to the transportation of critically ill patients using biomedical modeling. The course has existed in Portugal for many years and can be implemented and adapted in Ukraine,” said Vitor Almeida.
The doctor highlighted the presence in the team of a pediatrician from the D. Estefania hospital in Lisbon, specializing in the transport of seriously ill patients, and explained the relevance of this training in the daily life of a country at war.
“The war is very focused on the front of the fighting. But most of the country works economically, albeit with restrictions. must support normal daily functioning. The level of quality that we offer in the hospital cannot fall during transportation,” the coordinator said.
And he gave an example: “Diabetics continue to exist, heart attacks continue to occur, hip fractures in older people too.”
Victor Almeida noted that “the need to transfer patients to quieter and safer rear hospitals is one of the biggest challenges” Ukrainian health services are currently facing, and this applies not only to Ukraine.
“Turkey has this problem because of the earthquake and is moving patients to inland cities,” he added.
The group of doctors that will go on this mission includes two Portuguese and two Portuguese-Ukrainians.
They will be received in Ternopil by the local medical faculty, and they will work in a simulation center, which, according to Viktor Almeida, is a “European standard”.
“With this commission, we are also going to help them get certified at the European level,” said the head of the GAHOM.
In a conversation with reporters, Vitor Almeida emphasized that Portugal currently, through the International Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders, among other things, has Portuguese doctors in the Congo, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Chile, Turkey and other scenarios.
Previously, OM President Miguel Guimarães and Health Minister Manuel Pizarro signed a cooperation protocol aimed at providing institutional support to these missions organized by GAHOM.
It also became known that the trip between Portugal and Warsaw (Poland, a country bordering Ukraine) is offered by TAR, and the Ternopil faculty is involved in the stay.
OM is responsible for covering the remaining costs as well as insurance, and the Ministry of Health is responsible for providing consular support and guaranteeing work permits for these doctors, who will be away from their normal tasks in the National Medical Service for about three weeks.
Since this is not the first mission organized by the OM in Ukraine, but departing symbolically when the year of the war is celebrated, Miguel Guimarães noted that he expects to “train at least 50 Ukrainian specialists” and added that this office can provide support in other scenarios such as like Africa, for example.
The Minister of Health, on the other hand, highlighted the support that Portugal is giving Ukraine, namely the “immediate” acceptance of 52,000 refugees and the supply of 10.5 million packages of medicines.
Manuel Pizarro said that seven Ukrainian patients are currently being treated in Portuguese hospitals: six children and one adult.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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