Polish Health Minister Adam Niedzielski told reporters: “As agreed, we’ll be helping Ukraine join the European Union by providing training courses that must be completed on the path to the EU.”
He made the declaration at a news conference to mark the launch of a course in helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS) for the first group of Ukrainian medics, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
“Hopefully, this process will proceed very quickly," Niedzielski said.
Training for Ukrainian medics
Speaking at the Polish Medical Air Rescue (LPR) base in Warsaw, Niedzielski said the course in HEMS for Ukrainian medics “is practical in nature, starting with a medical module, but also includes the context of aerial evacuation” of injured soldiers and civilians.
He added such courses would be provided at LPR bases across the country, the PAP news agency reported.
The health minister told reporters that the HEMS training consisted of a series of courses and “is compatible with European standards.”
“We are offering the same courses to our teams,” he stated.
Battlefield medicine for Ukrainian doctors
Niedzielski also said that Poland’s LPR agency had recently organised “a training programme in battlefield medicine for Ukrainian doctors in the western city of Ivano–Frankivsk,” adding that the programme would continue.
The Polish health minister said that cooperation with his Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Lashko and the health ministry in Kyiv concerned “numerous aspects” of health policy, including the organisation of Ukraine’s health system after the war and “sharing Poland’s experiences in introducing digital solutions,” the PAP news agency reported.
Poland, Ukraine 'fighting together on the medical front'
Niedzielski was accompanied at the news conference by Ukrainian Deputy Health Minister Iryna Mykychak.
She said that HEMS courses for Ukrainian medics were being offered “thanks to an initiative by Poland’s First Lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda and Ukraine’s Olena Zelenska.”
Mykychak said the first ladies had also initiated many other bilateral projects, including “the evacuation of more than 2,000 ill people so far through a hub in Poland to medical facilities in Poland and elsewhere around Europe where they receive professional care.”
She thanked the government and people of Poland for providing wide-ranging assistance to her country.
“In Ukraine, we feel the Polish hearts, Polish help," Mykychak said. "You are supporting us on many fronts. We are fighting together on the medical front."
'Capacity to provide security and medical services to citizens'
Meanwhile, Jacek Siewiera, who heads Polish President Andrzej Duda’s National Security Bureau (BBN), told reporters: “The outcome of the war in Ukraine will depend on the resilience of the state, including its capacity to provide security and medical services to citizens.”
Siewiera said: “The war is just a temporary obstacle in the development of a free, sovereign Ukraine.”
Monday is day 292 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
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Source: PAP, pulsmedycyny.pl
Click on the audio player above for a report by Radio Poland's Agnieszka Bielawska.