The field hospital provided to Ukraine jointly by Estonia, Norway and the Netherlands as part of the third aid package has arrived in Ukraine, the Estonian Defence Investment Centre (ECDI) has reported.
It is noted that Norway and the Netherlands donated 7.8 million euros to send the field hospital to support Ukraine’s medical capacity.
“We transferred to Ukraine half of our Defense Forces’ existing field hospital, consisting of eight specialized medical containers, including a surgical, intensive care, intensive care, treatment and intermediate modules, medical storage, sterilization module and resource module,” said Kadi Kai Kollo, field hospital project manager at ECDI.
She noted that in addition to the usual parts of the hospital complex, storage containers, living module tents and a sanitary module with showers, toilets and washers and dryers were transferred to Ukraine.
In addition, ten MAN All Terrain Vehicles were provided by the Defense Forces to transport the wounded. The aid package also includes consumables for the hospital and training for the Ukrainian hospital team.
According to the ECDI, a trained team can deploy the hospital in about an hour. The speed of deployment of the field hospital provides mobility, which is very important for relocating medical care in a military conflict. Considering that about 950 medical facilities have been destroyed in Ukraine, according to various reports, such assistance is critical.
Under normal conditions, the field hospital employs about 15 people, and during the training period, it served about 60 people a day. The donated hospital will be used by Ukrainian army medics. To date, the two previously donated field hospitals have helped approximately 10,000 wounded.
The donated hospital was manufactured by the Estonian company Semetron, which designed the field hospital according to Ukrainian conditions. For example, heating and cooling equipment was modified for the Ukrainian climate, and tunnels connecting equipment and containers were upgraded.
The field hospital project was supported by the Netherlands and Norway for 7.8 million euros (3.5 million and 4.3 million respectively).
“The training was bilateral – we teach them, and the Ukrainian medical workers also teach us. Based on the experience from previous donations, we have already made changes to the training of our field hospital teams. In addition to technical training, we have added discussions on the possibilities of using the hospital in different configurations, for patients of different profiles, and the possibility of quickly integrating civilian sector specialists into the military hospitals. These lessons provided the Estonian Defence Forces’ medical department with a great opportunity to further develop the infrastructure of field hospitals and revise previous recommendations,” said Hele-Rith Lille, head of support and development at the Centre for War and Disaster Medicine of the Defence Forces.
