SMURD

The SMURD (short for rum. Serviciul mobile de Urgenta Reanimare şi Descarcerare, Translator: Mobile service for emergencies, resuscitation and recovery ) is a rescue service in Romania. It was founded in 1990 in Tirgu Mures at the initiative of the Living in Romania Palestinian doctor Raed Arafat, as was the state's emergency services shortly after the Romanian Revolution of 1989 in a disastrous state. Meanwhile, from this private project with foreign aid a country-wide emergency medical services incurred, which is legally part of the state military firefighters and can be achieved in conjunction with the police and fire using the emergency number 112.

In January 2012, the longtime head of the rescue services Raed Arafat SMURD - resigned after a publicly -run television dispute with President Traian Basescu to a market-based reform of the health system from his offices, which led to nationwide protests against the government. A week later, the government under Prime Minister Emil Boc backtracked, however, and ordered him again to the undersecretary for emergency services in the Ministry of Health.

History

A native of Nablus in the West Bank Palestinian Raed Arafat migrated as a 16 -year-old in 1981 to Romania and was able to study medicine there. After his training, he found employment as a doctor in the Transylvanian city of Tirgu Mures / Târgu Mureş where he the overthrow of the regime of Nicolae Ceauşescu and witnessed the violent ethnic riots in December 1989 in March 1990. For both events, it was found that the emergency service of government hospitals was in a catastrophic state. He therefore decided to build its own improvised rescue service in September 1990. Many of his fellow doctors from the hospital Clinicii de Anestezie Terapie intensiva as well as employees of the state rescue service Serviciul de Ambulanta support him and formed the first emergency unit. In 1991, this new local ambulance service a modern rescue vehicle as a donation from Germany. Until this time, all participants worked voluntary and honorary capacity. With the new device, however, a professionalization was necessary and from October this year began a collaboration with the brigade of the military firefighters of the circle Mureş.

In 1992 received the ambulance service more vehicles and medical equipment donated by the Norwegian Red Cross, the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh, Scotland and of Strathclyde Fire Brigade from Glasgow. This could now be in addition to emergency medical service be set up a mobile unit for salvage and for civil defense in case of chemical accidents. In 1993, the now SMURD called emergency services expanded for the first time and built a branch on the western Romania Oradea / Oradea and in südsiebenbürgischen Hermannstadt / Sibiu. With the help of additional donations from England and the United States, the service could be expanded further in the following year. This was followed by branches in Cluj / Cluj- Napoca, Arad, Timisoara, Craiova, Bucharest and Jassy. On 31 July 1994, the headquarters of the SMURD in the courtyard of Mureş County Hospital was opened in Neumarkt Mures / Târgu Mureş.

In 1996, the Parliament adopted Law No. 121 for the corps of military fire brigade, which it was obliged to provide in each county of Romania and emergency medical services. Thus, a legal basis was created around the privately founded SMURD, who was previously informally connected with the military fire brigade to integrate organizationally and financially to the state emergency services. In 1997, a team of disaster 25köpfiges SMURD was built with aid from France, which was equipped with the then modern pagers. A working mobile phone network, there were at that time in Romania yet, the first GSM network (now Vodafone România ) started in April 1997 by the company Connex, had not yet expanded nationwide at that time.

In 1998, the military fire brigade Mureş together with the SMURD received the first lifeboat to victim and drowning to save from the Mures River. In July of that year, a major fundraising campaign was launched in Mureş county in which to December 183,000 DM could be collected. In order for a special rescue vehicle of the company Meanies was purchased from Bonn, then the most modern in Romania. In 1999, the first rescue helicopter, a French Alouette III was put into operation.

In 2001, the emergency call system was unified in Romania and switched to the euro emergency call 112. Under this number can also be called since the SMURD. In the following years the SMURD continued to expand, first-aid centers were now established also in medium and smaller towns, such as in Ibanesti ( Mureş ), Sovata and Dumbrăveni / Elizabeth City. 2011, the nation's fourth SMURD - rescue helicopter in Timişoara / Timişoara was put into operation.

In January 2012, it came around the SMURD - rescue service to political disputes. As part of the austerity measures as a result of the sovereign debt crisis in the euro area through which the financially already battered Romania came forth in distress and has since become dependent on loans from the EU and the International Monetary Fund, suggested President Traian Basescu, for a reform of the public health. Among other things, the previously funded by donations and government subsidies SMURD - rescue service to be privatized. Raed Arafat, founder and director of the organization, which had become even Secretary of State in the Ministry of Health, this proposal rejected vehemently. He therefore resigned in protest from his offices. This in turn triggered a wave of protest in the population because Arafat was very popular as a non- party political career changers. In addition, the SMURD was considered reliable. Der Spiegel wrote on January 16, 2012 at all: "As the only area of the otherwise ailing Romanian healthcare applies Arafat's work as exemplary. That's why even the IMF and EU had strongly discouraged by a reform of the SMURD. " Demonstrations in Bucharest, Timisoara, Brasov, Sibiu and many other cities followed. Even Health Minister László Ritli of the Hungarian party UDMR, the junior coalition partner in the government, stood on Arafat's side. Finally, Prime Minister Emil Boc revoked on January 18, Arafat 's resignation and ordered him again to the undersecretary for emergency services in the Ministry of Health. The market economic transformation of the emergency services is therefore shelved.