The largest pan-European field hospital, which includes seven EU countries and Turkey, was presented on Wednesday in Cascais, Lisbon, and aims to improve the European civil protection mechanism for medical emergencies following natural or man-made disasters.

“There is the concern – as has happened in previous years – we may have to resort to this European mechanism for civil protection, which allows Portugal, effectively, to have the solidarity of other European countries and thus (…) can implement on the ground a more robust response capacity,” the president of the National Institute of Medical Emergency (INEM), Luís Meira, told Lusa news agency.

The EU directly allocated €106 million to implement the consortium, which covers Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Romania and Turkey, aimed at improving the European civil protection mechanism for medical emergencies following major natural or man-made disasters.

According to Luís Meira, Portugal has recently shown a “spirit of solidarity”, and the INEM has gone ahead with joint missions, which support other countries.

“The countries’ response capacity is not sufficient to respond to situations that often do not respect the countries’ borders and, therefore, being part of this project is fundamental for Portugal because we are contributing to a spirit of solidarity and cooperation with other European countries that have agreed to join this consortium,” he stressed.

Contributing to strengthening the response capacity of the EU and Portugal in the face of “violent scenarios”, Luís Meira explained that the EMT (Emergency Medical Team) has been certified by the World Health Organisation (WHO) since 2018 “is an excellent example.”

“We were certified at that time and after a few days, we were on the ground supporting Mozambique because of Cyclone Idai. That is the best example”, he recalled, adding that “probably already in 2024, we will start to see the first achievements on the ground of this project”.

“Portugal will have access, through INEM, to around €6.7 million for specific funding for two of the capabilities that will be assigned. In addition to the EMT, we will have a cell specialised in transport and another cell specialised in oxygen production that (…) will provide a response and create the possibility of having (…) one of the largest field hospitals that can intervene on the ground worldwide,” he said.

The head of the WHO network of emergency medical teams, Flavio Salio, said the consortium was created to “strengthen national capacity and unite countries” to maximise the civil protection service.

“The expectation is that countries will strengthen their capacity to respond in domestic emergencies and then come together for a joint response,” he said.

Meanwhile, the European Commission’s Director of Emergency Management, Hans Das, explained that the rescEU EMT project is expected to be “the largest field hospital in the world”.

“In practice, this field hospital should be operational by mid-2024, as part of the rescue mechanism and as a strategic point that we are developing at a European level,” he said.

According to Hans Das, the field hospital will strengthen the countries’ emergency teams during natural disasters or pandemics.

“We are announcing the allocation of €106 million from the [EU] Civil Protection budget for this emergency medical team (…), which is part of a wider effort. We are also investing in doctors (…) and other kinds of mechanisms with a budget of €2 billion”, he said.

Hans Das also said that “with climate change, (…) there will be more natural disasters in the world, including floods, droughts and fires”, stressing that the field hospital “is very necessary”.

For his part, the secretary of state of Romania’s interior ministry, Raed Arafat, indicated that this concept had already been tested in his country in 2018, also with EU support.

“We saw that it is possible to work together, it is possible to create a strong [reaction] capacity with several countries. (…) In the pandemic, four field hospitals operated in Romania alone, three with military and one with Civil Protection. We saw their impact when we had distressing situations with many patients and no space for them,” he noted.

Considering the field hospital indispensable, Raed Arafat said Romania has learned a lot from the pandemic to receiving refugees because of the war in Ukraine.

The project will consist of three emergency medical type 2 (EMT2) teams and will have the capacity to provide urgent medical care, including surgical capacity, 24 hours a day.

There will also be 17 teams specialised in the areas of Intensive Care, treatment of burn patients, advanced diagnostics, maternal and child support, orthopaedic treatment, rehabilitation, patient transport, laboratory support and telecommunications.

(João Moura Lacerda, edited by Shrikesh Laxmidas | Lusa.pt)

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