KABUL, AFGHANISTAN- Members of the Afghanistan National Army (ANA) and the Afghanistan National Military Hospital (NMH) participated in a Mass Casualty (MASCAL) Evacuation training conducted by soldiers assigned to the US Armed Forces- Afghanistan (USFOR-A),at the Kabul New Compound, Jan. 21.
The objective of the MASCAL training is to teach the students how to transfer injured personnel from the point of injury to the causality collection point(s) for treatment and/or move incoming patients from helicopters to the hospital or treatment area.
"In the past our staff did not have this important training, and they were not trained as efficient as this. Providing this training by our international partners has given us a new perspective on the subject, which will help us to evacuate patients from helicopter efficiently," said Afghanistan Army Master Sgt. Ali Mohammad, Head of the Ambulance Center at the NMH.
"I feel a greater responsibility right now, because in the past we had to have our foreign colleagues help us in evacuations from helicopter, since we did not have any training of this sort. But now we can do the evacuation from helicopters independently and perfectly without our foreign colleague's assistance," added Mohammad.
Afghanistan Army Col. Nasruddin Amin, Emergency Ward Chief at NMH, also participated in the training event.
"This training was very useful for us and for all our medics, particularly in helping those patients who are transported from remote provinces by helicopters. If those patients are transported via ground transportation they will have less chance to survive. We are very happy that the patients are transported by medical evacuation teams in helicopters, which have all necessary means for life support and emergency care such as oxygen and monitor, " said Amin .
Today's exercise constituted the culminating event of the MASCAL EVAC training. ANA soldiers and personnel will now be certified in safe ways to approach a helicopter, carry a litter, and load it into an ambulance, while responding to emergencies such as a loose tourniquet.
The patient transfer training is a facet of the medical, train, advise, assist, mission that was implemented to ensure that the Afghan forces are fully prepared to assume the security mission after the U.S. withdrawal in 2014.
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