Life-Saving Defibrillator Program

As it was already covered by the website honvedelem.hu in May, the life-saving defibrillator program has been initiated by the MoD Medical Directorate in conjunction with the HDF Voluntary Mutual Complementary Health Insurance Fund.

The reasons are evident: cardiovascular and circulatory diseases are highly dangerous and are among the leading risk factors in the Hungarian Defence Forces, the same way as in cases of people working in other areas. Therefore we must pay special attention to prevention and efficient emergency treatment, for the cardiac arrest “beast" attacks insidiously, unexpectedly and fast as lightning.

“For the sake of successful intervention, that is, acute life-saving, we are procuring devices that can be easily used by non-professionals as well, and we have requested the health fund to provide us with an operational instruction training", Brig-Gen. (Med.) Dr. András Németh, the Chief of the MoD Medical Directorate told us on Friday, July 8, the day when the defibrillator was delivered to the Balaton Street building of the Ministry of Defence.

“We have appointed 125 persons, who have received the necessary special training, so the operators using the resuscitation equipment are ready to take action around the clock – and they can be deployed at once when need arises. This is highly significant because the first four minutes are literally of vital importance in saving the patient’s life" – the general added.

The defibrillator is, in other words, an “automatic doctor", for it “tells" you step by step what must be done and immediately corrects mistakes or stops the resuscitation process, so the operator “only" has to understand the “language" of the device. Since its operation depends not only on life situations but also on the number of personnel, starting from the Budapest bases, defibrillators will be introduced gradually in all parts of the country. In the first phase 12–15 pieces of equipment will be installed, mostly with the help of the health fund.

Dr. Miklós Rékai, the managing director of the health fund underlined that they pay an extra amount of attention to the provision of the highest quality medical care, and to people over 45 years of age. The cervical cancer screening program launched three years ago for female personnel will be finished this year, to be followed by the defibrillator program. In addition to health fund members, the program is meant to include everyone. The health project is also aimed at performing more thorough check-ups so that dangers posed by overweight, high cholesterol level and other risk factors can be discovered in time.

 
 Photo: Mária Krasznai-Nehrebeczky