Mash medics will stage a major exercise involving scores of casualties - and a new field hospital - in York this weekend.

Exercise PETIT MASH is the first of its kind since the Army Medical Services arrived in York to train Territorial Army medics from all over the country.

Personnel from 207 Field Hospital Royal Army Medical Corps have been setting up a working 50-bed field hospital in a large hangar-like building at Towthorpe Lines, Strensall.

It will grow within 24 hours from boxes into a fully-equipped hospital, complete with operating theatres, wards, casualty department and an X-ray unit.

By tomorrow, it is expected to be fully operational and receiving "casualties" - about 150 army cadets from North and West Yorkshire and Cleveland, who will be made up to look like the real thing, with false blood, simulated broken bones and burns.

Colonel Chris Best, Commander of the AMS (TA), which recently moved to Imphal Barracks in York from a camp at Chester, said the hangar building could produce certain effects and conditions.

"The heating can be controlled to produce a climate similar to that of the Gulf countries.

"It has four different electrical supplies, including a field electrical power distribution system, and they can be turned off to simulate power cuts."

Water supplies for the hospital can come from the mains, or this can be switched off to test the ability of the Royal Engineers to pipe it in from a specially-constructed tank which they have set up.

A 50-bed field hospital under canvas will also be erected on grass nearby.

Personnel from the 207 Field Hospital, Manchester, will be involved in this weekend's exercise, having chosen a layout for their hospital with moveable partitions to divide the complex up into wards, theatres and other accommodation.

The medics are qualified staff, many of whom work for the NHS during the week.

The training camp has a helicopter landing area and future exercises may include casualties being brought in by RAF Chinook helicopter.

Col Best said the AMS was delighted with the training facilities.

"They are just what the doctor ordered," he said.

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