An OSCE-organized Medical Training-of-Trainers Course started on 24 June 2024. The course brought together twenty-four border guards who work in remote areas and act as first responders to emergencies and incidents, specializing in rescue operations.
The course aims to enhance trainees’ practical skills and focuses on first aid provision and pre-hospital emergency medical care, as well as modern and effective methods of first aid response. Participants will be trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation, trauma and bleeding, stress and shock management and procedures for triaging and moving patients to the next level of care.
Opening the training course, John MacGregor, Head of the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat, said: “As is known, the OSCE participating States are committed to promoting border security and management.”
“The highly important work of the border guards entails specific risks to health, since border guards are serving in different climatic and geographical conditions at any time of the day,” stressed MacGregor”.
“International best practices show that any properly trained person can provide first aid, thereby saving a person’s life even in a critical situation,” he added.
The course is facilitated by two international medical experts from Germany. Applying an experiential learning method, the experts will involve trainees in simulation exercises that are tailored to climatic and geographical conditions of the region.
Experts from the World Health Organization Country Office in Turkmenistan, the Ministry of Health and Medical Industry of Turkmenistan, and the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat will make presentations on such important topics as health care measures during emergencies, infection prevention and control, medical health care ethics during emergency response and mental health.
The course is organized within the framework of the Centre’s extrabudgetary multi-donor project “Strengthening State Border Service Capacities of Turkmenistan” and supported financially by the Government of Germany.