JERUSALEM — United Hatzalah has recently begun a countrywide campaign in which the organization is making the registration and retraining procedure for military and combat medics to enter the civilian arena as EMTs much simpler,” said Moti Elmaliach, United Hatzalah Spokesperson. “Military medics can sign up online or over the phone and will be given a course specifically suited for their level of training that is half the time of a regular course thereby allowing these medics to utilize their training and get out into the field saving lives even faster.”
The course is geared towards recent released military and combat medics or medics in reserves and have completed an IDF retraining course within the last two years. All eligible medics must still qualify for the basic guidelines of registration with United Hatzalah, those being that the prospective volunteers be over 21 years of age and have a car handy that they can head out to emergency calls with.
Providing that the medics meet these two qualifications and have no criminal record, they can register for the expedited course and transition from a military medic to a civilian EMT. The expedited course will focus on areas of medical training regarding the treatment of patients in situations that the military training didn’t focus on.
“We have found that military medics are incredibly well trained when it comes to trauma,” explained Noa Zohar, Director of the Education Department at United Hatzalah. “They deal with it all the time. They are equally well trained with giving a patient an intravenous line. They are extremely experienced with these types of procedures but are often lacking knowledge and experience in treating illnesses or assisting a laboring mother in giving birth. These cases are not common in the military field and the medics need to be properly trained in these areas before they can receive civilian accreditation,”
“We hope to bring in hundreds of recently released military medics, or those currently serving in reserve units, countrywide via the new campaign” said Eli Beer, President and Founder of United Hatzalah. “We are looking to help any medic who wishes to continue saving lives in the civilian arena upon their being discharged from the military or during their reserve service, to do so. By allowing these medics to continue giving back to their country and fulfilling the ideals that they have learned in the military, we are broadening the network of volunteers across Israel and cutting down our response time even further. It is a win-win situation for everyone involved.”