Auxiliary hospital
An auxiliary hospital (HKH) is a facility for in- patient treatment provided for special emergencies . It is activated to provide additional treatment capacities when the capacities of normal medical care facilities are overloaded. This case can arise due to reduced capacity of the health system due to infrastructure destruction, increased patient incidence, or a combination of both. The possible causes of such an emergency include wars , natural disasters , epidemics , terrorist attacks or reactor accidents .
An auxiliary hospital housed in a shelter is also known as a bunker hospital . In colloquial terms, emergency hospitals , in particular, are occasionally referred to as emergency hospitals, which were set up temporarily or only after an emergency occurred .
General
In general, a distinction can be made between auxiliary hospitals that are mobile and are only set up temporarily in the event of an emergency, and those that are built permanently at a certain location and only have to be activated in the event of an emergency. Temporary hospitals can e.g. B. be set up in public buildings such as gyms or consist of medical tents or containers in an open space. However, they can also be installed on ships, so hospital ships specially provided for this purpose can in principle be viewed as a floating variant of an auxiliary hospital.
A differentiation from facilities such as accident relief centers or treatment centers for disaster control and their military equivalent, the field hospitals , could be achieved by the fact that these are only intended for first aid for patients, but further treatment takes place in a conventional hospital. In contrast, an inpatient admission of patients is possible in auxiliary hospitals.
Cold War auxiliary hospitals
Federal Republic of Germany and West Berlin
In 1957 a first law on measures to protect the civilian population was passed in the Federal Republic of Germany . On the basis of this law, since 1958, in view of the military threat from the Cold War and the associated nuclear arms race, auxiliary hospitals have been established by the civil protection authorities of the federal states in the event of war or comparable civil disasters. The federal government bore construction costs, maintenance and the cost of stocking bandages and medicines.
According to the federal government, there were a total of 160 facilities in Germany, including 22 fully equipped hospitals in underground bunkers. Contrary to this statement, there were 221 so-called auxiliary hospitals in the Federal Republic of Germany in the mid-1980s, 44 facilities in Bavaria alone. Each facility was assigned an acute hospital as the main hospital , which would have assigned doctors and nurses to operate in an emergency. In addition, it was planned to use the Occupational Safety Act to force additional staff.
In the event of an emerging military escalation ( voltage drop ) or if, for other reasons, the capacity of the normal hospitals would no longer have been sufficient, the auxiliary hospitals would have been put into operation. They were often partially or completely housed in shelters or were designed as operating bunkers from the start . In an emergency they would have z. B. Protection against debris and radioactive fallout , but not against a direct hit by a nuclear bomb .
Examples
There were 44 auxiliary hospitals in Bavaria. Gunzenhausen was a large location with three hospital facilities for a total of around 1400 people.
The Heckeshorn bunker in West Berlin was expanded as an auxiliary hospital.
In Hesse there was an auxiliary hospital in Kassel at the location of the state fire brigade school there .
Lower Saxony had 9 auxiliary hospitals that were completely underground. The locations are Bad Bederkesa, Bad Bentheim, Dissen aTW ( Dissen auxiliary hospital ), Lüneburg ( Oedeme auxiliary hospital ), Oldenburg ( Oldenburg auxiliary hospital ), Stade, Syke, Walsrode and Zeven. Another auxiliary hospital is located in an above-ground bunker at the Northwest Hospital Sanderbusch .
Examples of auxiliary hospitals in North Rhine-Westphalia are the Aldenhoven auxiliary hospital and the Bonn-Beuel auxiliary hospital . The St. Franziskus Hospital in Münster had a bunker equipped as an auxiliary hospital.
In Schleswig-Holstein there were subterranean auxiliary hospitals in Plön, St. Michaelisdonn and Wedel ( auxiliary hospital Wedel ). The Aid Hospital in Oldenburg in Holstein was no longer fully equipped after the end of the Cold War in the 1990s.
Shutdown and the current situation
Due to the reduced risk situation after the end of the Cold War, the German Civil Protection Act was amended several times and, among other things, the auxiliary hospitals have been gradually shut down since 1990. The bunker systems, which are mostly located under schools or administrative buildings, are either maintained as shelters by the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK) or have been handed over to the responsible municipality. The medical equipment was sent to crisis areas as a donation.
According to the BBK, the auxiliary hospitals could no longer be reactivated today, and the federal government has also not had any plans to set up temporary auxiliary hospitals. In the event of a possible war event, it is planned to support and expand the existing hospitals on site and thereby build up additional capacities within the existing health system. In addition, in civil protection, summarized now as civil protection called today to other concepts, such as the medical task forces set. The Bundeswehr has with the rescue centers of the medical service of the country, on the system " Transportable Hospital based", and the naval operation rescue centers on the supply ships of the class 702 through mobile treatment facilities that can accommodate inpatients also limited.
German Democratic Republic
In the GDR there was also the concept of adding auxiliary hospitals to existing hospitals in the event of war. However, shelter facilities built specifically for this purpose, as in the Federal Republic, did not exist. There were only suitable buildings for the establishment of auxiliary hospitals, such as B. Holiday accommodation of the FDGB holiday service , recorded and operated extensive camps with medical material across the board. An assigned main hospital would have been responsible for running the clinic .
Auxiliary hospitals in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic
In the course of the COVID-19 pandemic , there was an increasing number of auxiliary hospitals around the world in 2020, as the normal health system in many countries was overloaded by the large number of sick people. In the particularly affected Chinese city of Wuhan, the Huoshenshan Hospital and the Leishenshan Hospital were built within a few days . A completely new hospital for COVID-19 patients was also built near Moscow. In other countries such as Brazil, Germany, Iran, Austria, Spain and the USA, for example, shopping centers, sports and exhibition halls or stadiums are used as emergency hospitals. In Bavaria, as a reaction to the crisis, auxiliary hospitals were to be set up in the 26 rescue service districts. An auxiliary hospital with 1,350 beds in the IFEMA exhibition center in Madrid existed from March 21 to May 1, 2020, during which time over 4,000 patients were treated.
Web links
- Michael Grube: Auxiliary Hospitals in the Cold War. In: geschichtsspuren.de (formerly lostplaces.de). Retrieved on April 12, 2020 (detailed information on auxiliary hospitals).
- Bunker hospital. In: Galileo . February 11, 2011, accessed May 17, 2015 (video).
Individual evidence
- ^ First law on measures to protect the civilian population (PDF, 3.7 MB) , bbk.bund.de, accessed on April 11, 2020.
- ↑ Paperback for military issues 1959, Festland Verlag Bonn, p. 195 f.
- ↑ Documentation on exercises in the auxiliary hospital of the Gunzenhausen vocational school on November 29, 1986 from the Weißenburg / Gunzenhausen district office, self-published, 1986 in the historical archive of the Fürth hospital.
- ↑ a b c geschichtsspuren.de: Aid hospitals during the Cold War , last accessed on April 12, 2020
- ↑ Documentation on the exercises in the auxiliary hospital of the Gunzenhausen vocational school on November 29, 1986 from the Weißenburg / Gunzenhausen district office, self-published, p. 2, 1986 in the Fürth Clinic Historical Archive.
- ↑ Kassel, auxiliary hospital Heinrich-Schütz-Allee 62 on geschichtsspuren.de, accessed on April 12, 2020.
- ↑ What will happen to the hospital bunkers? Retrieved September 25, 2019 .
- ↑ Münster, Hochbunker Hohenzollernring 72 on geschichtsspuren.de, accessed on April 12, 2020.
- ↑ Festschrift “50 Years of Civil and Civil Protection in Germany” (PDF, 6.9 MB) , page 90, bbk.bund.de, accessed on April 12, 2020.
- ↑ COVID-19 questions and answers on bbk.bund.de, accessed on April 12, 2020.
- ↑ The Bundeswehr Rescue Center , bundeswehr.de, accessed on April 12, 2020.
- ↑ Corona hospital opened in Moscow , kma-online.de, April 21, 2020, accessed on May 1, 2020.
- ↑ These places were corona hospitals , t-online.de, accessed on April 12, 2020.
- ↑ Corona: Bavaria is checking possible locations for auxiliary hospitals. March 30, 2020, accessed March 31, 2020 .
- ↑ Coronavirus: Auxiliary hospital planned for the Neu-Ulm district. March 19, 2020, accessed March 31, 2020 .
- ↑ Lower Franconia is looking for locations for Corona auxiliary hospitals. March 31, 2020, accessed March 31, 2020 .
- ↑ Bavaria is preparing for more seriously ill people. March 31, 2020, accessed March 31, 2020 .
- ↑ First auxiliary hospital in Bavaria opened in the Regen district. March 31, 2020, accessed March 31, 2020 .
- ↑ An emergency clinic for the worst days. April 1, 2020, accessed April 4, 2020 .
- ↑ "A miracle clinic ": Madrid closes huge Corona field hospital , noz.de, May 1, 2020.