Balıkesir İl Sağlık Müdürlüğü

UMKE (National Medical Rescue Team) is a team made up of volunteer healthcare personnel operating during disasters and emergencies in Türkiye, under the Ministry of Health.

It provides emergency medical intervention, medical support for search and rescue operations, and field healthcare services during earthquakes, floods, fires, and major accidents. Its members receive specialized training and can be deployed both nationally and internationally when needed.With the aim of providing medical rescue services at disaster sites as quickly as possible, especially during earthquakes, through well-trained and appropriately equipped teams both domestically and internationally; ensuring the rapid and safe transportation of patients and casualties; delivering emergency treatment units and services after evacuation; and establishing the professional management organization required for all these processes, the “Health Organization in Disasters Project” was launched with the approval of the Ministry of Health dated 30.12.2003 and numbered 5442, and the National Medical Rescue Teams (UMKE) were established.

In addition to disasters and emergencies, UMKE also takes part in CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear) incidents, fires and explosions, major traffic accidents, social incidents, mass migration and large population movements, national and international sports events, and dangerous or epidemic diseases, among other events.

Alongside medical rescue services, depending on the scale of the disaster, UMKE actively participates in all stages of healthcare delivery within disaster response and recovery activities by establishing on-site surgical intervention units, emergency response units, mobile hospitals, personnel accommodation units, mobile command centers, and mobile incident management centers.

In the mobile hospitals established by UMKE, specialist physicians from all medical branches, general practitioners, and specially trained emergency department, neonatal, operating room, intensive care, and ward nurses and midwives, as well as laboratory, radiology, anesthesia, and orthopedic technicians/technologists, and other healthcare personnel, carry out their duties.