From Estonia to the Frontlines: Mobile Solutions for Military Medicine
In Ukraine, lives are being saved at field hospitals developed and produced in Estonia
Military missions and crises require flexible solutions, especially when it is necessary to ensure fast and effective medical assistance. That is why mobile hospitals, capable of swift relocation, have become an integral component of the military healthcare system.
The field hospital, consisting of modules, became familiar to the wider Estonian public during the coronavirus crisis of 2020. In just a few hours on the first day of April, a spider-like formation appeared next to the Kuressaare hospital, increasing the intensive care capacity of the islanders and creating room for additional beds. Four weeks later, the medical unit was swiftly packed up and sent back to the defence depot with honours. The crisis was over for the time being.
At the time, many people may have overlooked the domestic origin of this NATO-standard military hospital. It has been developed and produced by MDSC Systems OÜ, a member of the Estonian Defence and Aerospace Industry Association, focusing on creating mobile and modular container solutions to the specific needs of the military sector. Over the years, the company has amassed high-level expertise for implementing complex projects, spanning from design to production.
CEO of the company Kristjan Kamdron describes how they have steadily grown, relying solely on their own revenue for each subsequent advancement. “Our development has been organic in every aspect. It originated in the Maru Metall department, where we explored container utilisation. Collaboration with the defence forces and the defence industry, which commenced in 2009, propelled us to a stage years later where it became prudent to establish a separate company dedicated to creating mobile container solutions and everything related to them,” recalls Kamdron.
The field of container solutions is extremely vast, spanning from a 30-square-metre souvenir shop or a temporary dental office at one end of the scale there to a field hospital teeming with cutting-edge technology that swiftly relocates with triage, complete with operating blocks, wards and procedure rooms – mirroring the features of conventional healthcare facilities. MDSC Systems has consolidated solutions that align with military requirements under the brand Maru Defence.
Maru Defence’s field hospital arose of an urgent necessity
In around 2013, the Estonian Defence Forces needed a container hospital. “We dared to offer them our assistance because we had previously outsourced various container solutions to the defence forces, moving step by step towards our product. Winning the Estonian Rescue Board’s tender a few years earlier also bolstered our confidence, leading to the completion of two crisis management staff facilities.
The initial modules of the field hospital were developed in collaboration with the Defence Forces and The Ministry of Defence and were equipped by a medical engineering partner. This laid the groundwork upon which the current concept of Maru Defence’s field hospitals is based. In 2019, we delivered the first operational field hospital under the same name to the Defence Forces. It is currently being used by the Ukrainian army alongside three other Maru Defence hospitals. Kamdron emphasises, “The feedback reaching Estonia from actual combat situations is invaluable for improving our field hospitals.”
The remarkable advantages of the modular hospital manufactured in Estonia drew the attention of military medics from various countries during NATO’s largest medical exercises, Vigorous Warrior 2017 in Berlin and then a few years later in Romania. For instance, Maru Defence can prepare a hospital for relocation in just a couple of hours, whereas NATO’s initial time requirement for this is eight hours. Furthermore, for transport, the modules shrink to the dimensions of standard containers, eliminating the need for special equipment during their deployment. “What is also noteworthy about our solutions is that the trauma centre module can operate completely autonomously – it is equipped with a separate power generator and all the necessary resources to commence operations independently before gradually connecting the rest of the hospital,” Kamdron highlights additional advantages over foreign competitors. “Our modularity and connectivity enable users to configure the hospital to their specific needs. Not all components need to be stationed in the same position at all times.”
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