Israel’s military field hospital Commander Dr. Ofer Merin, also the Deputy Director-General and Head of the Trauma Unit at Shaare Zedek Medical Center, led the medical effort as part of a large scale army exercise utilizing new technologies in the battlefield designed to minimize casualties.
The Israeli Defense Forces Field Hospital is the only hospital that has been recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a Type 3 medical corps hospital (the highest ranking). As part of last month’s large-scale military exercise, the Israel Defense Forces field hospital was set up underground (in the parking lot of a mall) and was intended to simulate a situation in which the area was hit by Hezbollah rockets.
The simulation included unmanned ammunition and equipment trucks, a parachute with a GPS device that can precisely deliver heavy equipment in enemy territory and a hovercraft used to carry the wounded. The hovercraft carried a “wounded individual” – a dummy fitted with a monitor which was on a stretcher, which was then flown for five minutes at a height of 40 meters. While the “wounded” was in the air, the medical team was able to monitor the patient’s condition.
Over 200 doctors and other medical reserve personnel were part of this exercise and they “treated” some 200 mock casualties, some of whom were evacuated using the Israeli Air Force’s helicopter fleet and Hercules aircrafts. The hospital included emergency and trauma rooms, four operating beds, ten intensive care beds, x-ray and laboratory facilities, hospitalization rooms and a pediatric ward.
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