Millions for Multi-Profile Medical Simulation Centre

On 24 April 2019, Deputy Health Ministers Zbigniew J. Król and Sławomir Gadomski signed 15 grant agreements for the creation of new medical simulation centres and the development of selected prevention projects. The Ministry of Health will allocate 93 million zlotys from the EU funds under the Knowledge, Education and Development Programme for the implementation of those tasks.

The meeting at the Ministry of Health was attended by Prof. Wiesława Piątkowska-Stepaniak, Vice-Rector for Administration and Development and Marcin Miga, Vice-Chancellor of the UO.

Representatives of the ministry presented Prof. Piątkowska-Stepaniak with a symbolic cheque for 13,809,586 zlotys. The money is earmarked for the Multi-Profile Medical Simulation Centre, which has only recently been active at the Collegium Medicum of the University of Opole.

The medical simulation centre at the University of Opole is one of the five newly established centres - the remaining ones will be opened in Rzeszów, Kielce, Warsaw and Zielona Góra.

Over half of the 14 million zlotys acquired by our university will be spent on the purchase of the equipment for the Centre, and the remaining part will be used for training of teaching staff and students, hiring medical simulation technicians, and preparing classes with the use of simulation techniques.

The UO medical simulation centre has or will soon have a technical, surgical and nursing skills learning laboratory, intensive therapy room, clinical and nursing skills room, delivery room, operating theatre, hospital emergency department and an emergency field with an ambulance simulator.

According to American data, 440,000 patients die every year in the US from medical errors, and further 3.5 million citizens suffer permanent damage to their health as a result. Practising the profession of a doctor requires constant pursuit of perfection in order to eliminate the possibility of making mistakes. Such a possibility is offered by learning on simulators, where, for example, it is possible to intubate a patient's simulator even fifty times in order to do so for the fifty-first time, when it is necessary to save a person in a severe condition, without error, with the eyes closed. Perfection requires training, and a safe, harmless training is possible with the use of simulators and rooms virtually identical to the surgical ones.

The Centre will be used primarily by medical students and teaching and technical staff  of the University of Opole.

See the Multi-Profile Medical Simulation Centre HERE

Photos: Ministry of Health