Paid by the Bundeswehr Special Fund, Bundeswehr Medical Service is receiving new airborne mobile rescue centres. Among other equipment the light medical facilities, in which emergency medical and surgical first aid is provided to patients, have an ambulance, an operating theater and intensive care capacities. Last week, German procurement agency BAAINBw commissioned the company M. Schall GmbH & Co.KG to provide eight such systems. The contract has a volume of approximately €40 million.
“With the new airborne mobile ambulances, systems that have been in use since 2003 will be regenerated and missing material will be newly procured,” says the responsible project manager at BAAINBw, Oberfeldapotheker René Schliebener. This new medical equipment ensures improved treatment possibilities for the soldiers during operation. For example, a new portable X-ray and a bone surgery device are part of the equipment – the latter can be used either for surgical opening of a skull (skull trepanation) or treatment of complicated bone fractures.
The new mobile medical equipment is more than 30 tonnes lighter than its predecessor systems and also reduced in volume and thus optimised for air transport. All new units are designed to be highly independent and therefore equipped with rechargeable batteries. This enables continuous treatment of injured persons even in the event of a power generator failure.
The first equipment is to be handed over to German Armed Forces in the fourth quarter of this year. Delivery as a whole is to be completed by the end of 2024.
Dorothee Frank, Head of editorial team