BICOM

The United Nation’s World Health Organization (WHO) has recognised the Israeli army’s field hospital, which is regularly sent overseas to provide emergency medical care, as the “number one” in the world.

In 2013, the WHO created a set of criteria to classify foreign medical teams in sudden disasters, on a scale from one to three. The IDF revealed on Sunday that its medical teams had been awarded a “type 3” designation, a level of speciality and provision of care that no other medical team in the world has been granted. In order to receive such a designation, a medical team must have at least 40 inpatient beds, an intensive care unit, and have the ability to perform 15-30 surgeries per day, as well as provide other services including rehabilitation. Israel’s medical team has 86 inpatient beds and four operating rooms.

IDF medical teams provided assistance after the major earthquake in Nepal in 2015 and earthquakes in Haiti in 2010 and in Turkey in 1999. The team also assisted in the aftermath of the typhoon in the Philippines in 2013.  The new type 3 classification will allow IDF teams to be the first on the scene of future natural disasters, allowing them to quickly assemble their field hospital and provide their extensive range of emergency healthcare in the disaster zone.