Field hospital

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Field hospital of the Radom-Kielce Home Army area, during the Operation Tempest of 1944
Field hospital of the Radom-Kielce Home Army area, during the Operation Tempest of 1944
47th Combat Support Hospital, 2000
47th Combat Support Hospital, 2000


A field hospital is a large mobile medical unit that temporarily takes care of casualties on-site before they can be safely transported to more permanent hospital facilities. The concept was inherited from the battlefield (such as the MASH: mobile army surgical hospital), and is now applied in case of disasters or massive accidents, as well as the traditional military usage.

A field hospital is a medical staff with a mobile medical kit and, often, a wide tent-like shelter (at times an inflatable structure in modern usage) so it can be readily set up near the source of the casualties. In an urban environment, the field hospital is often established in an easily accessible and highly visible building (e.g. restaurant, school, etc.). In case of an airborne structure, the mobile medical kit is often placed in normalized container; the container itself is then used as shelter.

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