Arafat: SMURD integration into Health Ministry would weaken system, spoil what has been built

The head of the Department for Emergency Situations (DSU) of the Interior Ministry, State Secretary Raed Arafat, said on Thursday in central Brasov that he sees no reason for a possible integration of SMURD (Mobile Emergency Service for Resuscitation and Extrication) into the Ministry of Health, a move that would only "weaken the system and spoil what has been built".

"The integration of SMURD into the Health Ministry or the breaking of the way of working of the emergency system that exists at the moment, which is a mode integrated with the DSU and which has proved its efficiency - at least during the pandemic, the efficiency of a unitary coordination has been seen very clearly - and the return in time to a model in which everyone was in a different place only serves to glorify the system and spoil what has been built. We move on to an integrated model. With MS it collaborates, but the coordination is in one place. At an intervention, not only the Ambulance, the doctor go, the firefighters go too, and the SMURD, and the helicopter," said Dr. Raed Arafat, who was in Brasov on Thursday, on the occasion of the inauguration of the new building of UPU-SMURD (Emergency Reception Unit, UPU), Agerpres reports.

He stressed that he sees no reason for this "rift."

"This system, since we developed it in 2007, we have developed it to go together. (...) I don't see any reason now to break it, some at the Interior, others at the Health Ministry, and to spoil what has proven to be very effective," the DSU chief said.

Social-Democratic Health Minister Alexandru Rafila said in a public debate on Thursday that SMURD should move from the Interior Ministry to the Health Ministry.