Siege of town and establishment of field hospital

The degree of material and social development determines the basic characteristics of warfare. There are various causes, means and goals of warfare. From the standpoint of international war law, significant is the division between international and non-international (civil) war. International law of war is a part of public international law and constitutes a set of contractual and legal rules governing the relations between the international recognized subjects in times of armed conflict. The town of Konjic and Konjic municipalities are geographically located in the northern part of Herzegovina-Neretva Canton. It is the largest urban municipality in the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Distance to some settlements in the northeast to the northwest or the villages are 186 km. Municipality area is 1,101 km(2). According to the character of the mountainous districts, inhabited by a sparse population, which amounts to 29.65 people per 1 km(2). A third of the population lives in the city and suburbs, and the other two-thirds is the rural population.

Our aim was to show that in an environment, space, under the conditions imposed suddenly by all sorts of war blockade, the successful in transformation from peacetime to war organization, with full support to local personnel and material-technical resources can be achieved successful results.

This research was conducted as a clinical, descriptive and retrospective, by valid documentation of War Hospital and already published thesis on a series of conferences, symposia and seminars at home and abroad. In this paper we show our results achieved in the care and treatment of injured and sick hospitalized in the War Hospital Konjic for the period from April 1992 till December 1995.

Of the total number of hospitalized at the surgical ward, 62% had an injury, a disease had 30.7%. Dominated by war injuries (78.9%). The total mortality in the surgical ward was 4.5%. By localization were most often represented injuries of the extremities (52.1%), followed by chest (22.4%), stomach (13.4%), head and neck (12.1%), and multiple wounds (10.4%). In case of extremity injury in 64% of cases it was a case of fracture of the bone and the skeleton, and 19.5% had an injury of the neuro-vascular structures. In case of injuries to the abdomen, usually it was a case of open injury (95%).

War Hospital, in many cases of illness and injury, due to the proximity of combat operations, and all manner of constant blockade, uniting all four echelons of health care by war-surgical doctrine. Start the application of the doctrine of original beginning of the admission, triage departments and ending at the other hospital departments with definitive cure in 90% of cases. In the meantime, patients went through all the stages (diagnosis, resuscitation, surgical treatment, conservative treatment, isolation, etc.).