“At the end of February, I gave the symbolic key to the military hospital to Oleksii Reznikov, the Minister of Defense of Ukraine, in Kyiv, and I am glad that it has now arrived. In order for Ukraine to win this war, it is important that Europe supports Ukraine together, and for this we have initiated the European Union’s procurement of over a million shells for Ukraine,” said Estonian Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur.
“We gave Ukraine half of the existing field hospital of our Defence Forces, consisting of eight specialised medical containers, including surgical, emergency medicine, intensive care, treatment and intermediate modules, a medical storage room, sterilisation module and resource module,” said Kadi-Kai Kollo, the field hospital project manager at ECDI.
„In addition to the usual parts of a hospital complex, storage containers, accommodation module tents and a sanitary module with showers, toilets, and washing machines with dryers were donated to Ukraine,“ added Kollo.
Ten off-road MAN vehicles were donated by the Defence Forces for hospital transportation. The aid package also includes consumables for the hospital and training for the Ukrainian hospital team.
“Training has been two-way – we teach them and the Ukrainian medical professionals also teach us,” says Lieutenant Hele-Reet Lille, Head of the Support and Development Department of the Defence Forces’ Centre of War and Disaster Medicine. “Based on the experience gained from previous donations, we have already made changes to our field hospital training. In addition to technical training, we have added discussions on the possibilities of using the hospital in different configurations, for patients with different profiles, and also the possibilities of quickly integrating specialists from the civilian sector into military hospitals. These lessons have been a great opportunity for the Estonian Defence Forces’ medicine department to further develop field hospital infrastructure and review the previous guidelines.”
A trained team can set up a hospital in about one hour. The speed of setting up a field hospital provides mobility, which is very important for the relocation of medical aid in a military conflict. Given that approximately 950 medical facilities have been destroyed in Ukraine according to various sources, such help is crucial.
Under normal circumstances, approximately 15 people work in a field hospital, and during training it helps nearly 60 people a day. Ukrainian army medics will be working in the donated hospital. To date, the two field hospitals donated before have helped approximately 10,000 wounded.
The donated hospital was made by the Estonian company Semetron, who has shaped the field hospital to suit the conditions of Ukraine. For example, the heating and cooling equipment has been modified to suit the Ukrainian climate, and the tunnels connecting the equipment and the containers have been updated.
The field hospital project is supported by the Netherlands and Norway with 7.8 million euros (3.5 million and 4.3 million respectively). The Estonian costs mainly consists of the salary expenses of the Estonian Centre for Defence Investment to the donation project manager and the defence personnel related to the donation.
Two field hospitals were sent to Ukraine in cooperation with Germany last year, in March and in September.
