Royal Air Force Medics have been training in North Yorkshire prior to their deployment as part of the UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan.
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A 29-strong team of clinicians and nurses from medical units in Plymouth, Frimley Park, Oxford, Portsmouth, RAF Brize Norton Tactical Medical Wing, Northallerton, and Birmingham have been put through their paces at the Army Medical Service Training Centre near York.
Once in Africa the Air Force will run a military hospital providing vital healthcare for international troops protecting victims of the Sudanese civil war.
Squadron Leader Scott Fitzgerald, who will be the Officer Commanding the RAF Field Hospital said:
“There is a whole new range of conditions we will face, for example tropical diseases such as malaria, cholera, typhoid, snake bites, and scorpion stings that are serious within that region, and we’ve had to prepare ourselves for that.”
Officer Commanding
Squadron Leader Scott Joseph Fitzgerald
With around 320 troops deployed, the UK contribution to the mission in the African country is Britain’s largest UN peacekeeping operation.
British Army Royal Engineers are building a permanent medical centre in Bentiu camp next to the current tented field hospital, where the airmen and women will be based, to care for around 1,800 UN personnel. Vietnamese personnel will take over the new hospital when it is finished.
For full story see RAF News out on 29 June.