Germany plans for up to 1,000 wounded soldiers a day in potential war with Russia
Germany is preparing its healthcare system for a scenario in which as many as 1,000 wounded soldiers could arrive in the country every day if Russia attacks NATO territory, Bloomberg reported.
The estimate comes from a Bundeswehr report modeling potential conflict scenarios. Germany’s five military hospitals would quickly run out of capacity, meaning civilian hospitals would also have to treat wounded troops and could be forced to triage military and civilian patients.
The preparations have brought renewed attention to a Cold War-era medical bunker beneath the Bundeswehr hospital in Ulm. Built in 1979 to allow doctors to continue treating soldiers after a nuclear attack, the underground facility can accommodate up to 2,000 people for 90 days.
After sitting largely unused for nearly three decades, the bunker could now be brought back into service, although its ventilation and power systems would require millions of euros in upgrades.
“Is our healthcare system prepared for this? The only answer is: No,” said Benedikt Friemert, commander and chief medical director of the military hospital in Ulm. “What lies ahead of us is a marathon.”
Germany is also training civilian doctors to handle wartime injuries. Only a few hundred doctors in the country are estimated to have experience treating such trauma, while the most intensive military-oriented courses can train just 50 to 100 surgeons a year.
In March, the Bundeswehr held its largest medical exercise in decades, simulating an attack on Lithuania and transporting wounded soldiers to hospitals in Berlin and Brandenburg.
Germany is also drawing lessons from Ukraine, where hospitals have moved patients to lower floors and underground spaces, protected windows against blast damage and installed alternative power sources as they adapted to Russian attacks.