Story of Rizgar Abdul Rizaq, a paramedic
Following the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Medecins du Monde’s (MdM) Iraq Mission increased its focus on training in emergency medical response across the country.
In 2006, the MdM Iraq team implemented further training with a focus on: Emergency Management; Mental Health Care; and Mother and Child Health Care. All the training was conducted in conjunction with the Ministry of Health (MoH) of Iraq and the Kurdish Regional Government, and was aimed at Iraqi health professionals.
The most recent training was completed in Erbil, Kurdistan Iraq, in December 2010 with an overwhelmingly positive response from the trainees.
The experience of a paramedic from Erbil
Thirty-seven year old Rizgar Abdul Rizaq is a paramedic working in Erbil. Determined to improve his skills in emergency response, the MoH of Erbil signed him up for the MdM Emergency Management Training. Working on the road in his mobile clinic he is committed to increasing the accessibility of patients to medical care, and to providing the best service possible. However, prior to the MdM training, Rizgar struggled with some of the most basic life saving techniques, due to a lack of continued, comprehensive training. Skills such as CPR and intubation were but a few that Rizgar gained during his training sessions over the past two years with MdM – and these newly gained skills have saved lives.
The most difficult cases for Rizgar are the cases that have come as a result of the ongoing violence in Iraq that have affected him the most. Explosions in and around Mosul, sometimes every other day at the peak of the war, resulted in hundreds of emergency cases which Rizgar attended to. Often the wounded required treatment at the hospital in Erbil, 30 kilometres away, so it was up to Rizgar to keep them alive. In one case, a young man from Mosul had been hit in the chest by shrapnel and Rizgar used his EMT skills to put pressure on the wound and stop the flow of blood until he reached the hospital emergency department.
Rizgar is grateful to have received the MdM training, and he feels strongly about passing the information and skills he has gained on to his colleagues in the field. Some of his peers have commented that after 25 years in the field there are techniques that MdM has taught Rizgar that they did not know before.
