Medical Training in the Central African Republic

Soldiers of the 23rd Battalion of II Infantry Brigade of the Georgian Armed Forces took part in a multinational medical training on the base “UCATEX” in Bangui, Central African Republic. The aim of the exercise was to test and exercise coordination and readiness of the medical units and their ability to respond quickly to an emergency mass casualty situation. Along with the Georgian medical personnel, Serbian and French military doctors, as well as four paramedics participated in the training.

The exercise went on according to the imitated scenario. Explosion took place in front of the dining facility. The hand grenade attack caused six casualties. The leadership evaluated the training positively.

“Today we had a mass casualty exercise. This exercise was organized by our medical unit – Roller 1 in cooperation with all troop contributing nations’ medical personnel. Along with the French medical teams there were Serbian nurses, Georgian medical officers and four paramedics involved in the exercise. Besides that the Georgian contingent provided the personnel who played the role of the casualties. The aim of the exercise was to test and exercise the readiness of medical units, their ability to respond quickly to an emergency mass casualty situation. We also tested communication between the quick reaction force medical team, Roller 1, troop contributing nations’ medical personnel and also a medical advisor. Also we have tested the triage procedures and treatment of the casualties. The challenges were mainly the language barrier and because we have identified this problem at the very beginning of the mission, we have established common approach to emergency care and we have selected the French operational principles so called SAFE-MARCHE-RYAN principle. All the troop contributing nations’ medical personnel were educated and exercised to use this principle during emergency situations. Today’s exercise went well. Of course, there is always room for improvement and our task is to keep up vigilance, level of skills and we had to practice coordination between our international medical personnel. I would like to thank all my colleagues for the excellent work and I wish everybody safe return to home and successful completion of the mission,” chief of medical service of the mission, Col. Zoltan Vekerdy said.

The 23rd Battalion is the second unit which carries out the peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic. The main task of the Georgian military is to provide security within the patrolling area nearby the Bangui airport.