Croatian Medical Corps in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the 1992-1995 War

Military Medicine,  Nov 2003  by Bagaric, Ivan,  Eldar, Reuben

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All of these preparations were concluded by the middle of March 1992 and led to the establishment of the Medical Corps Headquarter (MCHQ) in suitably located Tomislavgrad with initially three departments: war hospitals, preventive medicine (including medical supplies), and field medical teams. Later, the fourth department of informatics was set up. The chain of command went from the MCHQ to heads of municipal medical services and later to brigade physicians. Another vertical chain of command went directly from MCHQ to commanders of war hospitals. On March 15, 1992, the first meeting of the MCHQ with the medical functionaries in the field was held, the concept of the services were clarified, and future steps were outlined.11 The Croatian community of Herzeg-Bosna (a self-organized administration of BH Croatian, set up late in 1991) authorized and confirmed these preparations.

Mode of Operation

The preparations were very timely. At the beginning of April 1992, armed aggression started with paramilitary forces of BH Serbs, backed by the Yugoslav National Army, attacking the two other nations. The Croat Defense Council (CDC) was formed on April 8 and began to organize the defense of the Croat population. This was immediately followed by the organization of military units with the MCHQ deploying medical personnel to the planned units. The units were, in the beginning, conceived on a territorial principle, i.e., soldiers assigned to units defending their homes and municipalities. These were volunteers who received arms and uniforms but rarely any training before being engaged in combat. The defense was organized on the municipal level, and municipal military formations relied on local "homes of health" for medical personnel and supplies under the command of the head of the facility, which was usually a local respected general practitioner or specialist. These local units had from several hundred to 1,500 men; two medical teams were to take care of 500 soldiers, each team consisting of a physician, two medical technicians, and two ambulance drivers. Selected soldiers were locally trained in first aid and then assigned as paramedics to every platoon. With the formation of brigades, brigade medical physicians were appointed, and the function of the head of municipal medical services was abolished with the head of the services returning to his duties as head of a "home of health" or medical center or as commandant of the war hospital if set up within it. Within a brigade, each battalion had a physician, two medical technicians, and two ambulance drivers. There was a locally trained medical technician in each company and a paramedic in each platoon (in both cases with a first-aid kit, splints, and stretchers). Subsequently, military formations of operative zones were established, each including all brigades functioning within the zone. A physician was appointed as medical service commander who was in charge of all medical facilities in the area and the closest war hospital. None of the mentioned physicians had any training or experience in war medicine or military service.