Ukrainian government to allow blood transfusions by combat medics at pre-hospital stage
The Ukrainian government has adopted an order which will allow appropriately trained combat medics to administer blood transfusions at a pre-hospital stage.
Source: Ministry of Health of Ukraine
For this purpose, the Health Ministry is expanding a special training programme in the basics of transfusion therapy. On the training course, combat medics will acquire the skills required for blood transfusion. The new programme corresponds to NATO standards.
"In civilian life, we can get a person with critical blood loss to hospital in 15 minutes, but the war dictates its own conditions. We have to react to the challenges of the war as efficiently as possible in order to provide all the necessary conditions and opportunities to save the lives of the wounded," said Viktor Liashko, Ukraine’s Health Minister.
"One critically important task is to make blood transfusion as accessible as possible for patients. This is literally fundamental to our soldiers’ survival. It is not easy to build the infrastructure for using blood on the front line, but we must move in this direction because the price of delay is too high – human life."
It is estimated that this reform will significantly reduce the percentage of preventable deaths on the battlefield due to blood loss.
Background: Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar remarked in August that the Ukrainian government was considering the possibility of blood transfusion at the pre-hospital stage.
After training, even a combat medic without a medical education will be able to save lives.
Earlier, Ukraine’s Medical Forces Command, Defence Ministry and Health Ministry were seeking a compromise on blood transfusion by combat medics at the front.
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