Parliament plans to restore compulsory military training for medical and pharmacy students
14 May 14:41
The Verkhovna Rada will consider draft law No. 13276, which provides for the resumption of compulsory military training for students of medical and pharmaceutical specialties.
The bill was initiated by a group of MPs led by the chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on National Health, Mykhailo Radutsky. This was reported by the Judicial and Legal Newspaper, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports.
As the authors of the document explain, there is an acute shortage of military medical personnel for the Armed Forces in Ukraine. Therefore, the draft law proposes to make military training under the program of reserve medical officers (41 ECTS credits) mandatory for all students studying in medical and pharmaceutical specialties who are fit for service for health reasons and who have passed a professional and psychological selection.
Currently, such training is provided exclusively on a voluntary basis, mainly at the expense of students themselves, and covers only about 5% of the total number of students in these specialties.
The draft law also provides for
- the obligation of all universities, regardless of their form of ownership, to organize appropriate training;
- expanding the network of military medicine or disaster medicine departments in medical schools;
- granting the Ministry of Health the authority to coordinate military specialties and training with the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Education.
After the amendments are adopted, the government will have to ensure the creation of the required number of military training units in the relevant higher education institutions within six months
