Brno prepares expats to become hospital volunteers

The Czech city involves foreign citizens in the fight against COVID-19

The Czech city of Brno is making tremendous efforts to increase the size of its army against the new coronavirus. The latest members to join the fight are a group of local expats – foreigners who have been living in the city for a while now and who speak English fluently. Thanks to the Red Cross and the Brno Expat Centre, they have received proper training and are now ready to volunteer at hospitals fighting COVID-19 and wherever needed.

Supporting foreign-speaking healthcare professionals

In the last days of November, the Red Cross has given a crash course meant to prepare a group of foreigners to become COVID-19 volunteers. Unlike other similar courses, which have been taking place regularly since the beginning of the pandemic, this time the training was translated into English, thanks to an organisation established in 2010 to assist local expats.

The group of foreigners signed up voluntarily for the training, as they wanted to help the city take back control over the pandemic. A group of nine participants mastered patients' rights, communication methods, hygienic processes, bed preparation, feeding, positioning patients and the use of protective equipment. All these skills will be mobilised in helping medical teams from abroad.

"The presence of English-speaking foreigners will be very useful, especially if the situation worsens again and medical teams from abroad arrive for help. Then these newly trained nurses will also be an important link with knowledge of local conditions," explained Katka Báňová from the Brno Expat Centre, which helped organize and promote the course.

In fact, the use of English-speaking volunteers has been deemed quite necessary. Czechia has been struggling with the second wave of coronavirus for a couple of weeks now.

Unlike during the spring wave, the Central European country is now observing one of the highest infection rates in the EU. The situation got so bad, that at some point the central government requested medical students to join the ranks of nurses and alleviate part of the pressure on them. The Mayor of Prague, himself, joined part-time the ranks of medical staff.

The country has even requested to receive assistance from its NATO allies, who dispatched medics to several of its cities. Brno, the second-largest Czech city, received six Combat Medical Technicians from the United Kingdom, following this request.