The Swedish Armed Forces Centre for Defence Medicine (, FömedC) is a tri-service military medicine center in the Swedish Armed Forces. Its staff is made up of officers, civilian specialists, group commanders and officer reservists – tasked with ensuring care is provided during peacetime, on international missions, at times of crisis and in combat.
History
The Swedish Armed Forces Center for Defense Medicine has its roots in the Medical Board of the Royal Swedish Army Materiel Administration (and the Medical Inspectorate), which was established in 1906. On 1 January 1944, the Medical Services Administration of the Swedish Armed Forces (Försvarets sjukvårdsförvaltning) was established. The Medical Services Administration of the Swedish Armed Forces took over tasks that had previously been entrusted to the Royal Swedish Army Materiel Administration, the Royal Swedish Naval Materiel Administration and the Royal Swedish Air Force Materiel Administration. The tasks of the Medical Services Administration of the Swedish Armed Forces were to exercise, in technical and economic terms, the management and oversight of the Swedish Armed Forces's health care. More elaborate were the activities of the Medical Services Administration, military hospitals, health care services, the medical equipment, the medical supplies and medicines, funds management, administrative matters in general, remittance cases from the King in Council or head of ministry and assistant to the Supreme Commander, the chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Force, etc. in health care issues. The inspection activities within the Army, Navy and Air Force medical services were the responsibility of the Surgeon-in-Chief of the Swedish Army, the Surgeon-in-Chief of the Swedish Navy and the Surgeon-in-Chief of the Swedish Air Force.
On 1 July 1949, the unit was renamed the Medical Board of the Swedish Armed Forces (Försvarets sjukvårdsstyrelse). The name change was not prompted by a changed organization. The Medical Board of the Swedish Armed Forces exercised the management and supervision of the health care within the Swedish Armed Forces. Within the board, a medical corps office was established and for this reason, the SFS 1969:409 instruction from 1 July 1969 meant that the Swedish Army Medical Corps, the Swedish Naval Medical Officers’ Corps and the Swedish Army Veterinary Corps was now referred to as the Medical Corps of the Swedish Armed Forces. From 1 January 1974, there were pharmaceutical expertise on the board which was directly subordinate to the Surgeon-General of the Swedish Armed Forces, when the same SFS 1973:953 instruction for military pharmacies expired. The Medical Board of the Swedish Armed Forces ceased on 30 June 1994. Large parts of the operations were transferred on 1 July of that year to the newly formed Medical Center of the Swedish Armed Forces (Försvarets sjukvårdscentrum, FSC) in Hammarö, Karlstad.
Prior to the Defence Act of 2004, the Swedish government proposed to the Riksdag that the Medical Center of the Swedish Armed Forces should be relocated from Hammarö to Gothenburg. The background was that the Artillery Regiment (A 9) in Kristinehamn was proposed to be relocated to Boden Garrison. Hence, the Medical Center of the Swedish Armed Forces would become a solitaire in Värmland, something the government felt would increase the Swedish Armed Forces' long-term overall operations. In the government's proposal, a disbandment of the 4th Marine Regiment (Amf 4) was proposed, which would allow the Medical Center of the Swedish Armed Forces to utilize the liberated educational capacity in Gothenburg. The fact that Gothenburg was proposed as a new location was also partly due to an inquiry (SOU 1992:101) on the Command and Government Organization for the Swedish Armed Forces (LEMO). The inquiry had, among other things, looked at the Swedish Armed Forces' health and medical care. The arguments put forward at that time the government considered largely valid. Among other things, the argument put forward by the inquiry in 1992 that the operations could be conducted in all the three localities in question, ie Gothenburg, Solna and Karlstad.