A group of 12 medical workers from the emergency services on the left bank of the Nistru River recently began a professional development session in Chișinău. Regardless of their years of experience, those wishing to refresh their knowledge participated in a basic cardiopulmonary resuscitation course for adults.

This first course is part of a comprehensive training programme. The courses will be held periodically over a period of approximately two years, with the aim of continuously strengthening the expertise and skills of all medical personnel involved in emergency medicine.

Cristina Micova has been an emergency doctor for three years. She chose this field because she wanted to help people and believes that emergency medicine is very interesting. "I came to these courses to learn something new, to find out about modern technologies and to gain new knowledge, which is always useful in our work," adds Cristina.

With over 23 years of experience, Alexandru Barbunov, an emergency doctor and anesthesiologist-resuscitator in Tiraspol, emphasizes the vital need for these sessions. He believes that doctors should take refresher courses at least once or twice a year: "New publications and studies are appearing and knowledge is necessary in our field in order to improve. In medicine, it doesn't matter who you are, people have only one life and we must cherish it, and information is even more useful in the field in which we work, intensive care for cardiac resuscitation".

This specialization course is part of a complex activity designed to strengthen the skills of medical personnel on the left bank of the Nistru River and ensure the application of updated methodologies, contributing to the approximation of intervention standards to international ones. 

The initiative is part of the “Supporting trust and cooperation between the two banks of the Nistru in the field of emergency healthcare”, funded by Switzerland and the United Kingdom and implemented by UNDP.

Skills development is not the only objective. As part of the same project, a model emergency unit will be developed in Slobozia. In addition to modernizing the infrastructure of the emergency medical unit, two modern ambulances will be purchased, which will significantly improve rapid response capacity in the region.