Basic Task of the Medical Service
The vision of the Norwegian Armed Forces Joint Medical Services (NAFJMS) is:
„Ad Militiae Valetudinem“
The basic task of the Norwegian Armed Forces Joint Medical Services (NAFJMS) is to protect, maintain and restore the health of Norwegian military service personnel.
NAFJMS develops national military medical concepts, doctrines and procedures. It generates medical treatment facilities for use at home and for deployment overseas. It provides medical evacuation and force health protection for the Norwegian Defence at home and overseas.
The NAFJMS is commanded by the Surgeon General, who has the overall responsibility for Norwegian Armed Forces Medical Policy and is the senior medical advisor to the Chief of Defence.
The NAFJMS provides medical policy and guidelines for all military medical activity across the four service branches (Army, Navy, Air Force and Home Guard).
The NAFJMS generates specialised medical capacities for use in support of land, sea and air operations as needed. These capacities aim to either reinforce service branch medical support, or provide national capacities in a tri-service setting. One example is strategic medical evacuation. Another example is a Role 2 enhanced medical treatment facility for use in support of the service branches or available for overseas deployment. The MTF system components are modular. This provides a high degree of flexibility in capacity and size depending upon mission requirements.
The NAFJMS further provides a number of other specialised medical, dental and veterinary services in support of all service branches at home and overseas.
Structure
The NAFJMS is commanded by the Surgeon General, who has the overall responsibility for Norwegian Armed Forces Medical Policy and is the senior medical advisor to the Chief of Defence.
Source: Ministry of Defence Norway
Field Deployments
Role 2 Medical Treatment Facilities
In the last decade NAFJMS has deployed MTF to Afghanistan (2003-2004 and 2005-2006) and to Chad (2009-2010).
The NAFJMS can deploy an MTF with capacity up to Role 2 Enhanced. An MTF may be deployed as an autonomous unit with integral logistics and C2, or it may be deployed in collaboration with a partner nation to augment an existing MTF in a given theatre of operations. The MTF is modular and up to Role 2 basic infrastructure independent.
The Norwegian Role 2 in ISAF – MERO 2. In MERO 2 personnel from Macedonia, US and Norway were co-located and worked together in order to provide a robust life saving medical treatment facility.
Main Missions (medical units)
| Korea | 1951 – 1954 |
| Egypt/ Gaza | 1956 – 1963 |
| Congo | 1960 – 1963 |
| Peru | 1970 |
| Lebanon | 1978 – 1998 |
| Saudi–Arabia | 1991 |
| Iraq/Kuwait | 1991 – 1992 |
| Somalia | 1992 – 1994 |
| Bosnia-Herzegovina | 1992 – 1998 |
| FYROM | 1993 – 1994 |
| Sudan | 2005 |
| Afghanistan | 2003 – |
| MERO 2 Afghanistan | 2006 – 2012 |
| Chad | 2009 – 2010 |
| Mali | 2014- |
| Iraq | 2015 |
| Iraq | 2017-2018 |
Source: Ministry of Defence Norway
(status: 9th October 2024)
