A field hospital provided to Ukraine jointly by Estonia, Norway and the Netherlands as part of the third aid package has arrived in Ukraine, according to the Estonian Defence Investment Centre (ECDI)

It is noted that Norway and the Netherlands donated EUR 7.8 million to send out the field hospital in order to support Ukraine's medical capacity.

"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," field hospital project manager at ECDI Kadi-Kai Kollo said.

She said 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.

In addition, 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.

According to ECDI, 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).

Training has been two-way – we teach them and the Ukrainian medical professionals also teach us. 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," Head of the Support and Development Department of the Defence Forces' Centre of War and Disaster Medicine, Lieutenant Hele-Reet Lille said.