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A field hospital is a large mobile medical unit that takes care of the casualties outside the hospital buildings. The concept is inherited from the battlefield (such as the MASH: Mobile Army Surgical Hospital ), and is now applied in case of disasters or massive accidents. A field hospital is a medical staff with a mobile medical kit and a wide tent-like shelter (probably an inflatable structure) so it can be set up on a road or in wilderness. In an urban environment, the field hospital can be installed in a building (e.g. restaurant, school, conference room). In case of an airborne structure, the mobile medical kit is often placed in normalized container; the container is then used as shelter. FIELD HOSPITALS IN FRANCE In France , the mobile medical kits (''poste sanitaire mobile'', PSM ) are managed by the Samu (French Emergency Medical Service ). There are two types of kits:
The PSM are stored in the hospitals where there are Samu s and Smur s. The field hospital is the core of the Emergency Plan called '' Plan Rouge ''; it is then called "advanced medical post" (''poste médical avancé'', PMA ). It is equipped by a PSM. The PMA is organized in four zones:
In case of really massive disaster, it is possible to have several PMA; the evacuation goes then not directly to a hospital, but to another big field hospital called "medical evacuation centre" (''centre médical d'évacuation'', CME), to avoid the saturation of the hospitals. In case of a Red Plan , the PMA is under the responsibility of a physician chosen by the director of medical rescue (DSM), and he is assisted by an Firefighter officer chosen by the commander of rescue operation (COS). The firefighter officer has in charge the identification of the living casualties and of the secretaryship. The aim of the PMA is to sort and stabilize the casualties before their evacuation to an hospital. A similar system can be set up as a preventive measure for some very big events (sport championship, cultural events, concert...), but managed by first aid associations. It is then called an "associative medical post" (''poste associatif médicalisé'', PAM). (For smaller events, is simple First Aid Post , with only volunteer Certified First Responder s and no medical staff, is set up.) The Civil defence military units (''Unité d'instruction et d'intervention de la sécurité civile'', UIISC ) have airborne field hospitals. The general system is called DICA (''détachement d'intervention de catastrophe aéroporté'', i.e. airborne disaster unit), and is specialized in Search-and-rescue and in emergency medicine; it can be enhanced by the Fast civil defence medical unit, called ESCRIM (''élément de sécurité civile rapide d'intervention médicale''). The ESCRIM is a surgical unit (''detachement d'appui chirurgical'') assisted by a medical assistance unit (DAMHo, ''détachement d'appui médical et d'hospitalisation''); the later is specialized in pre- and post-operation care, and allows 48h of hospitalization. The UIISC also has a PMA (i.e. sort, stabilization and evacuation structure) when the hospital infrastructure of the country is sufficient. SEE ALSO |
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