Finland's hospitals bolster wartime preparedness, adapt to harsh lessons learned from Ukraine

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/6410183

With the war in Ukraine entering its fourth year, Finland is moving to strengthen its healthcare infrastructure.

Hospital operations are being made relocatable, buildings reinforced against attacks and medicine stockpiles expanded. To make this happen, roughly 100 million euros is being allocated for wellbeing counties in the state's third supplementary budget.

The reforms, prompted by lessons from Russia's war in Ukraine, aim to make hospitals and critical health services more resilient.

In practice, this can mean moving hospital operations below ground.

"The war has shown that hospitals and other healthcare services are not protected from military strikes — they can be targets," said Pekka Tulokas, an emergency manager at the preparedness unit working under the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health.

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