{"id":188862,"date":"2025-06-16T11:31:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-16T11:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/188862\/"},"modified":"2025-06-16T11:31:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T11:31:09","slug":"europes-frontier-countries-ready-their-hospitals-for-war-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/188862\/","title":{"rendered":"Europe\u2019s frontier countries ready their hospitals for war \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

While European countries average 11.5 intensive care beds per 100,000 population<\/a>, \u201cwartime needs could require three to five times this capacity,\u201d said Bj\u00f8rn Guldvog, special adviser at the Norwegian Directorate of Health, at a health security event in April. Sustaining a high volume of operations for weeks or months would also be challenging: \u201cMost facilities can sustain maybe 120-150 percent of normal surgical volume for 24 to 48 hours,\u201d he said. Blood and oxygen supplies would also become critical.<\/p>\n

Stockpiles and supply chains<\/strong><\/p>\n

Even the best-prepared hospitals can\u2019t function without medicines, supplies and equipment, and the Baltic countries are stocking up in preparation for mass casualties. Estonia, for example, has allocated \u20ac25 million for mass casualty supplies, including orthopedic gear, tourniquets and trauma kits \u2014 \u201cthe only heavy investment we have made,\u201d Health Minister Riina Sikkut said at an event in February.<\/p>\n

Stockpiles would ensure that hospitals can run until supplies from allies reach them, Vaiknemets said, adding that NATO is crucial to securing supply routes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Latvia, health-care institutions have been required since Covid-19 to maintain a three-month supply of medicines. \u201cI have never thought that I would say thanks to Covid, but thanks to Covid \u2026 we found financial resources,\u201d said Agnese Va\u013culiene, health ministry state secretary. The country is also working on national stockpiles.<\/p>\n

But the Baltics are too close to the front lines to keep emergency supplies safe, said Jos Joosten, a medical adviser at the European External Action Service, the EU\u2019s diplomatic corps. As a result, other EU countries must \u201cidentify the things that are scarce, that are very difficult to organize, specifically for the small nations,\u201d Joosten said. \u201cAnd then we should give [up] some sovereignty, give it to the European Union to make decisions\u201d on distributing what is needed.<\/p>\n

Stockpiles from the Red Cross, national reserves and rescEU, the EU\u2019s emergency service, must all be ready to reach the front line \u2014 and civilian patients. \u201cWe have to have good crisis plans,\u201d Sikkut said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While European countries average 11.5 intensive care beds per 100,000 population, \u201cwartime needs could require three to five…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188863,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4316],"tags":[77505,1111,77506,6178,1112,769,1824,105,3941,33190,77507,34778,4348,2207,1113,1114,5769,218,770,1093,332,16,657,15,771,77508,335],"class_list":{"0":"post-188862","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-battlefield-medicine","9":"tag-belarus","10":"tag-coming-wars","11":"tag-conflict","12":"tag-estonia","13":"tag-finland","14":"tag-germany","15":"tag-health","16":"tag-health-care","17":"tag-health-professionals-workforce","18":"tag-health-security","19":"tag-health-systems","20":"tag-healthcare","21":"tag-hospitals","22":"tag-latvia","23":"tag-lithuania","24":"tag-medicines","25":"tag-mental-health","26":"tag-poland","27":"tag-public-health","28":"tag-russia","29":"tag-uk","30":"tag-ukraine","31":"tag-united-kingdom","32":"tag-war","33":"tag-war-and-health","34":"tag-war-in-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114692822343553654","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}