Institute of Emergency Medicine

Institutul de Medicină Urgentă (IMU) at 1 Toma Ciorbă Street in the Centru district is the main emergency hospital of the Republic of Moldova — a national institution with an emergency department open around the clock. Its history begins in 1944 with Chișinău's first ambulance station; it has held institute status since 2014.

The hospital has over six hundred beds and departments of surgery, neurosurgery, orthopaedics and traumatology, neurology with a stroke unit, anaesthesia and intensive care, haemodialysis, and imaging with CT, MRI and angiography; it is a clinical base of the Medical University. Emergencies arrive via 112 or by walking into the emergency department; the consultative-diagnostic centre sees patients on weekday mornings under CNAM insurance with a referral, or for a fee.

Patient opinions are polarised, as at any busy emergency hospital: heartfelt thanks to surgeons and ward teams, but also many complaints about hours of waiting at triage, staff indifference and conditions in the waiting areas. Announcements about a new hospital building do not change the address for now.