Doctors are still not trained in blood transfusion, university programs have not changed during the war - military
Kyiv • UNN
An anesthesiologist with the Azov Brigade spoke about the problems with blood transfusions in the army. According to him, medical institutions still do not train specialists for this procedure, and university programs have not changed during the war.
Doctors and medical workers have never been trained and are still not trained in blood transfusion. The educational problem is that for almost three years of the full-scale invasion, university programs of medical institutions have not been changed in any way. This was stated by an anesthesiologist of the 12th Azov Special Forces Brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine with the call sign "Svitanok" during a telethon, UNN reports.
"Early transfusion (blood transfusion - ed.) is a very good practice and it is generally the norm in NATO armies and it is perceived as something obvious. In our army, unfortunately, it is still far from obvious. As a rule, doing these things, that is, blood transfusions and not only by combat medics, but already at the stabilization center, where there are already doctors, where equipment can be placed, I cannot say that it is frequent, it happens somewhere, let's say," Svitanok said.
He noted that his team and several other teams are doing this.
"But, to a large extent, at least in the areas where I have worked, this is not a mass phenomenon," Svitanok said.
He noted that blood storage and transfusion are very expensive.
"I cannot say that the army is fully provided with these things," Svitanok said.
He emphasized that Ukraine has never trained doctors and medics for blood transfusions and still does not.
"(Doctors, medics - ed.) have never been trained and are still not trained to transfuse blood. That is, our university problem, our educational problem, is that for almost 3 years of full-scale invasion, university programs of medical institutions have not been changed in any way," Svitanok said.
In addition, he noted that massive bleeding accounts for the largest share of deaths on the battlefield.
"Even if we rescued (a person - ed.) directly from the battlefield, after that, such complications develop that it is almost impossible to save the wounded in the future," Svitanok said.
According to him, the frontline units where combat medics work directly are equipped with a universal blood type and they can start transfusions literally in a trench or dugout.
When asked whether there is cooperation between the blood transfusion centers in the rear and the brigades to transfer blood on a regular basis, Svitanok replied: "It is generally true. We cooperate, in principle, and there have been no cases when we did not have a certain blood type. It's just that there are injuries when a lot of blood is needed. Even extremely much. There is no time to just go to blood banks to get this blood, because it is needed immediately.
"Svitanok noted that blood consists of components.
"As a rule, we are provided with components, and one of the difficulties is that we do not store platelets, because it is technically extremely difficult to store platelets at this stage. That's why we often need whole blood," Svitanok said.
Addendum
The government allowed combat medics to transfuse blood at the pre-hospital stage.
