United Russia plans to teach Russians how to provide first aid

United Russia plans to teach Russians how to provide first aid, deputy Dmitry Khubezov said. According to him, in this way the party intends to implement the amendments to the law “On the Fundamentals of Protecting the Health of Citizens” recently signed by President Vladimir Putin, which for the first time legally fixed, among other things, the concepts of “self-help” and “mutual assistance”. As part of free courses, citizens will be trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation, mouth-to-mouth artificial respiration, mouth-to-nose artificial respiration and other manipulations. As Kommersant found out, the Russians themselves are showing interest in such training: the Russian Red Cross and other first aid training centers talk about the demand for life-saving courses that has almost doubled over the past year.

In April 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law amending the 323-FZ, establishing the concept of “first aid”. When the bill was submitted to the State Duma in 2018, it was planned that first aid would be allowed to be provided to “an unlimited circle of people.” In the final version, the wording was corrected: employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, rescuers, firefighters, and military personnel are required to provide first aid. However, the document specifies that, if necessary, this can be done both by the victims themselves and by people nearby. At the same time, such concepts as “self-help” and “mutual assistance” are also introduced by law. Prior to the entry into force of the amendments, first aid could only be provided by people with special skills: those who have a vocational education, or those who have completed special courses.

State Duma deputy Dmitry Khubezov told Kommersant that, in pursuance of the law, United Russia, together with the Federal Center for Disaster Medicine of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, began to create unified first aid training programs for the population, train instructors, update theoretical knowledge, and introduce modern practical skills. According to Mr. Khubezov, each region will have a chief freelance first aid specialist who will be responsible for the implementation of the program. “First, it is planned to train all volunteers, motorists – those who are already obliged to be able to do this in order to conduct a kind of knowledge audit. The process will be coordinated by the Federal Center for Disaster Medicine. A register of accredited schools and a register of instructors will appear. It is necessary that instructors undergo training in a uniform way and that they themselves then teach in the same way,” said Dmitry Khubezov.

The deputy noted that, in fact, training is already underway and anyone can become a participant in the courses by contacting the territorial centers for disaster medicine in their regions. However, so far these courses are “not effective enough”. According to Mr. Khubezov, such knowledge is necessary, first of all, for residents of new Russian territories and border regions. Dmitry Khubezov cited statistics: the competent actions of those who happened to be nearby before the arrival of the ambulance will help save the lives of 20–25% of those injured in accidents.

The order of the Ministry of Health 447n mentions eight conditions in which it is permissible to provide first aid to the victim: lack of consciousness, respiratory and circulatory arrest, external bleeding, foreign bodies in the upper respiratory tract, injuries to various areas of the body, burns, effects of exposure to high and low temperatures, poisoning. A list of first aid measures has also been defined. For example, measures to conduct cardiopulmonary resuscitation before the appearance of signs of life involve hand pressure on the victim’s sternum, mouth-to-mouth artificial respiration, mouth-to-nose artificial respiration.

The interest of Russians in mastering the rules of first aid and medical care in general, meanwhile, is growing. At the end of 2022, the Russian Red Cross (RKK) recorded that the demand for training (meaning basic paid courses) increased by about 30% compared to the statistics of previous years. Stanislav Zhuravsky, deputy director of the First Aid training center, said that in September 2022, when partial mobilization was announced, the demand for training increased tenfold, now the peak has subsided, but still the number of students is twice as large as usual. The head of the First Aid First Aid Training Center, Maksim Shtyb, says that the number of their students has increased by one and a half times compared to 2021. The press secretary of the synodal department for church charity and social service of the Russian Orthodox Church, Vasily Rulinsky, claims that compared to the period until February 2022, the number of people wishing to take courses in caring for the wounded at the training center of the church hospital of St. Alexis has more than doubled. Since May 2022, 2,175 people have signed up for Moscow courses alone. 378 Orthodox student volunteers regularly go to hospitals in Moscow and the Moscow region, 417 people went to the conflict zone, and groups continue to leave every week.

The RKK explains that “people experience excitement and anxiety, they try to do something to calm down and feel more secure, so they want to be able to provide first aid.” According to Maksim Shtyb, students come with a variety of motivations: some are preparing to participate in the SVO, some are more worried about their loved ones, some start studying after they are faced with the need to provide first aid and were not ready for it. Mr. Shtyb and other experts interviewed by Kommersant have a positive attitude towards the initiative of the deputies. The RKK is completely convinced that it is necessary to educate the entire population, starting with children from five years old. According to Stanislav Zhuravsky, the only obstacle to the implementation of the program for mass first aid training may be the “human resource”. According to him, it is quite difficult to recruit the right number of “right instructors” who would have experience working with victims in emergency situations.

Assistant Minister of Health of the Russian Federation Alexei Kuznetsov said that the department supports the initiative. “The ability to provide first aid is really important and can save the lives of many people. The Federal Center for Disaster Medicine is a unique structure, whose specialists have the widest competence in providing assistance to victims in various emergency situations anywhere in the world. Their participation in the development of training programs implies their high quality and accessibility to the audience,” said Mr. Kuznetsov.

Natalya Kostarnova, Pavel Korobov