The model, presented last week at a conference hosted by the Military Medical Institute, calls for cyclical training, simulations and MASCAL maneuvers, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
MASCAL stands for “mass casualty,” a scenario in which large numbers of injured people arrive at the same time and the system must quickly expand capacity.
The meeting focused on emergency care in battlefield-like conditions, including immediate life-saving procedures at the scene, triage rules for mass incidents (sorting patients by urgency), and building psychological resilience among medical staff.
The conference was mainly about the human factor, "how to prepare hospital medical staff for armed conflict or mass incidents when a large number of wounded arrive at once,” said Col. Jarosław Kowal, the institute’s deputy director for organization and treatment planning.
Kowal argued that Poland should treat military and civilian medicine as a single system during crises.
“It is very important to stop separating military medicine from civilian medicine because in a situation of danger we will create a coherent system,” he said.
Participants included hospital directors and health managers from the central Mazovia region, along with leaders from emergency medical services and Poland’s air ambulance service.
Officials from ministries involved in medical preparedness also attended.
Kowal said the work is being carried out as a task assigned by the defense ministry, while also reflecting security concerns tied to the wider regional situation.
“None of us can really answer whether a full-scale conflict will not occur in Polish territory,” he said.
He added that planning must account for a range of threats, from ongoing hybrid warfare, meaning pressure that falls short of open combat such as cyberattacks and disinformation, to possible attacks that could send many wounded people to hospitals.
Experts said Poland’s readiness varies by hospital, depending on equipment and staff training. That, they argued, makes rapid rollout and standardization essential.
Kowal said the aim is to train 100 percent of medical personnel to a basic, nationwide standard, so every staff member can perform core life-saving actions such as stopping severe bleeding, helping a choking patient, and providing first aid.
The plan would then train about 15 percent of staff to an advanced level, with a further 2 to 3 percent prepared for specialist roles.
The conference, titled “Preparing and Using Medical Entities for National Defense Tasks,” was the third in a series on cooperation between civilian providers and the military health service, the PAP news agency reported.
Earlier sessions focused more on the framework for collaboration, as well as hospital equipment, infrastructure and supply-chain security, it said.
(rt/gs)
Source: zdrowie.pap.pl