[*]Many people will be interested in the country specific assessments of the legal and logistical situation. Could you indicate for how many countries these have already been done? Do you plan to publish these?
At present, everything's been checked to hell and back in the context of Portuguese law.
Other countries, as far as I am aware, our lawyers are still waiting on the Portuguese lawyer producing a list of questions. As Nuno, our CEO, is handling that directly, it is one aspect regarding which I can rarely give up-to-date answers without first checking.
[*]At the conference, you referred to your experience as a paramedic in the military. Don’t take this the wrong way, but have you really completed paramedic training?
Experience, sadly not.
But training, yes. I did the course and was then discharged from the military (ironically, a medical discharge) before putting it into practice. But yes, I completed the course.
The nutshell story of my relatively short time in the army was that I joined the Parachute Regiment, decided I'd like to be a medic specialist (within the regiment), then found that the only way to be assured of getting the medic training I wanted was with the RAMC instead, so after doing P-Coy and the subsequent jumps down at Brize Norton, I put in for a transfer, which was reluctantly (on the part of my former CO) agreed. After a brief spell in a mostly unexciting holding company doing some things so varied I won't bother to list them here, I finally got to go and do the CMT course, which is the Army's paramedic qualification. I did this, and then in a bout of spectacular timing, had unexpected cause to receive a medical discharge, two weeks before I would have gone to Iraq.
As I then went to work in the more sedentary field of health and social care (quite simply because a friend offered me the job at the right time), I was never registered with the HPC to practice as a paramedic in civy street. If I wanted to be registered with them now, I would almost certainly need to do something else first. If I had wanted to register with them back then, I'd probably *still* need to do something else first, but it wouldn't have been nearly so much as it would be now. Simply because my CMT training was focussed (obviously) on the work I'd have been doing most of - gunshot wounds, shrapnel injuries, working under fire, etc, and all in all quite different to civilian paramedic work in enough ways to mean I would have been somewhat out of place in a civy hospital / ambulance service.
Consequently, as it stands, I cannot call myself a paramedic (because I'm not; I'd have to be registered with the HPC for that), but I can certainly make mention of having been trained as a paramedic, since I have been.
[*]You mentioned that on Nov.1st, while the country-specific teams may not be ready, you would have a task force in place that can be scrambled across Europe. Could you give us some names and/or CVs?
With the permission of the people in question, I'd be delighted. In fact, I'm going to see whose permission I can get before the weekend, to see if I can include some in my presentation in Milano.
[*]Could you indicate on a per-country level how many ad-hoc professionals you have already recruited?
Presently, we have most of our needs being covered by agencies (who provide temporary doctors, nurses, etc) while we (I, specifically) gather up the slack in terms of recruiting individuals.
As for people who have been recruited individually, currently we're standing at around 15 in total, and gradually gaining ground.
But as I say, until we reach full capacity, our needs are covered by agencies. However, I much prefer to have individuals hired, because individuals can be trained in cryonics specifics well in advance, whereas workers from agencies will need to be briefed and brought up to speed very rapidly. Which is much better than not having professionals, but not nearly as good as having professionals well-trained in our own protocol in advance.
Once again, our main hold-up here is having our lawyer green-light our worker contracts so that we can finalise these agreements, as right now, we have enthusiastic applicants more than contractors. By enthusiastic I mean that they are as keen to receive the contracts from me, as I am to receive them from our CEO, as he is to receive them back from our Portuguese lawyer.
[*]You mentioned that you are already in the process of signing people up. Could you share some of the templates of contracts you have been using?
Yes, we are indeed already in the process of signing people up. So far we have 8 at the stage of being accepted, and another 14 who have not yet completed the application process. You should have a copy of the membership application form; I included you in a the announcement mailshot. I'd attach the same files to this post, but the uploader feature seems not to be working so well presently. I'll try it again later. In the meantime, if anybody reads this and wants a copy, just mention your email address to me and I'll be sure to send them to you.
The service contracts themselves, we have ready to go out, but I am waiting for authorisation to go ahead and release them, before I do so. As soon as I have that, I don't foresee any reason why there would be a problem with having sample contracts publicly available, and in fact some may find it useful, so I look forward to doing so.
[*]Are neurosuspensions treated differently by EUCRIO?
"Differently" implies a contrast, in this case, in contrast to what? Do you mean in contrast to how another organisation treats them, or in contrast to full body patients, or some other meaning?
[*]It seems a small step from the services you provide to long-term storage. Do you have any plans in this direction?
Once everything is up and running regards our already planned services (standby, stabilisation, transport), we may discuss that. For now, our priority is providing the best possible standby, stabilisation, and transport services.
[*]Is there an exit strategy in case you fail to get enough subscriptions to cover operating costs?
Given emergencies paying for themselves, and our relatively low non-emergency operational costs, EUCRIO's financial future seems very stable.
As the initial investments that financed EUCRIO's inception were donations, the company is effectively owned by our CEO.
To this end, it is to him to have an exit strategy or not. I can't speak for him in this regard.
