BP opens emergency medical service in Azeri region

BP opened a new emergency medical service facility in Azerbaijan’s central Kurdamir district on Thursday.

The facility will be operated as part of the Kurdamir Central Hospital using mixed resources of BP’s medical service provider and specially-trained local medical personnel, the company said.

BP worked with its partners in the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG), Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan main oil export and South Caucasus Pipeline gas projects to undertake the initiative.

The total cost of the project is $600,000 of which $450,000 is invested by ACG, BTC and SCP partners, and the remaining $150,000 comes from the implementing partner IMC.

The project is part of a major initiative called Regional Emergency Medical Program (REMP) designed to improve pre-hospital and in-hospital emergency medical services in the areas close to BP-operated pipelines. These are the areas which did not previously have emergency medical service bases to international standards. The REMP covers three major districts of Azerbaijan along the BTC/SCP and Western Route Export pipelines - Kurdamir, Yevlakh and Shamkir.

The work undertaken by the REMP includes renovation of existing emergency departments of central hospitals in the three districts, provision of new medical equipment and extensive training for local medical personnel. The implementer of the REMP on behalf of ACG, BTC and SCP partners is the International Medical Corps (IMC).

A similar facility was launched late last year in Yevlakh while the one in Shamkir is planned to be operational in the near future. The new facilities are designed to provide medical service to not only BP-operated projects staff but also local communities.*