Twenty locals to benefit from M*A*S*H invasion

MARIA PRIESTLEY
You could be forgiven for thinking you've walked onto the set of 1970s TV show M*A*S*H if you wander into the Hawke's Bay Hospital grounds this week.
A huge tented Mobile Army Surgical Hospital was set up at the hospital grounds in Hastings yesterday and, yes, it's a bit like M*A*S*H - only more advanced and without the backdrop of the Korean War.
It took five hours and 30 members of the New Zealand Army to set up the multi-roomed tent yesterday, which is covered with a shade cloth. And it's not just any old tent - this tent is a mobile surgical facility, complete with an operating theatre, an intensive-care ward, two trauma/resuscitation beds, two high-dependency beds and five medium-dependency beds.
It's not just for show either - 20 Hawke's Bay people will receive minor surgery inside the mobile hospital this week. Hosted by Hawke's Bay Hospital, the NZ Army Forward Surgical Team (FST) from Linton Military Camp in Palmerston North is here for Exercise Starlight Avenger 2 - a joint exercise involving army and air force personnel from New Zealand and soldiers from Australia.
The army hospital is designed to provide life and limb-saving surgery and medical care and was most recently used in East Timor during 1999-2001.
"It's a test to make sure we are ready if we are required to go overseas," said Major Lee Turner, who is in charge of the medical side of the exercise.
It was great that the army was able to help take 20 Hawke's Bay people off the waiting list for their surgery, he said.
"The situation might seem like an odd phenomenon to some people. But hopefully they don't mind going inside a tent to have their surgery."
Most of the planned surgery is excisions of lesions, which will be carried out under local and general anaesthetic by Defence Force specialist personnel this Saturday and Sunday.
Major Turner, an intensive care nurse, is one of 50 army and medical personnel staffing the the army hospital while in Hawke's Bay. They include surgeons, anaesthetists, anaesthetic technicians, a radiographer, medical laboratory scientists, nursing staff, medics, electricians, cooks and logistics staff.
Although the tent is well equipped for medical purposes, Major Turner and the rest of the team won't be spending their nights inside the tent - they've pitched their own accommodation tents nearby, which will be their base until Monday.
The exercise, which is also being conducted in the Taupo area until February 4, includes a range of activities and scenario-based training including simulated casualties evacuated to the army hospital by air and road.
On Friday, many of the army medical personnel will be working at Hawke's Bay Hospital as part of the training exercise.