"I handed over the symbolic key to the military hospital to Ukrainian Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov in Kyiv at the end of February, and I'm glad that it has now arrived," Minister of Defense Hanno Pevkur (Reform) said according to a press release.

The defense ministers of Estonia, Norway and the Netherlands signed a trilateral agreement in December for the joint donation of a field hospital to Ukraine in order to improve the Ukrainian Armed Forces' medical capabilities. Also included in the signing in Tallinn was Ukrainian Ambassador to Estonia Mariana Betsa.

Valued at €7.8 million, the aid package was funded by Norway and the Netherlands with contributions of €4.3 million and €3.5 million, respectively, and in addition to the field hospital itself, was also slated to included the procurement of container trucks and trailers, sanitary, storage and accommodation modules as well as medical supplies for upgrading the Role 2 unit, provided by the EDF, to be delivered to Ukraine.

"We gave Ukraine half of the existing field hospital of our Estonian Defense Forces (EDF), consisting of eight specialized medical containers, including surgical, emergency medicine, intensive care, treatment and intermediate modules, a medical storage room, a sterilization module and a resource module," Kadi-Kai Kollo, field hospital project manager at the ECDI, said on Tuesday.

Kollo confirmed that storage containers, accommodation module tents and a sanitary module including showers, toilets and washing machines and dryers were included in this donated unit as well.

The EDF donated ten off-road MAN vehicles for hospital transportation, and the aid package also included consumables for the hospital as well as training for the Ukrainian hospital team.

Set up in an hour

A trained team can set up a field hospital within approximately one hour, the ECDI said, noting that the speed of setting up a field hospital provides mobility, which is crucial 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, they added.

Under typical circumstances, a field hospital is staffed by approximately 15 people; during training, it treats nearly 60 people a day.

The newly arrived field hospital, which will be staffed by Ukrainian combat medics, was produced by the Estonian company Semetron, which customized the unit to fit conditions in Ukraine, including heating and cooling equipment modifications to suit the local climate as well as updated tunnels connecting the equipment and containers.

Last year, Estonia sent two earlier field hospitals to Ukraine in cooperation with Germany — one in March, followed by a second in September. To date, these two field hospitals have provided treatment to approximately 10,000 wounded.

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