1st Health Support Battalion

1st Close Health Battalion
Callsign Vampire logo used by 1CHB
Active	1 April 1968 – present
Country	Australia
Branch	Army
Type	Combat Health Support
Size	One battalion
Part of	17th Combat Service Support Brigade
Garrison/HQ	Holsworthy Barracks, Sydney
Anniversaries	1 April
Insignia
Unit Colour Patch

The 1st Close Health Battalion (1CHB) is a unit of the 17th Combat Service Support Brigade of the Australian Army. It is headquartered at the Holsworthy Army Barracks in Sydney, but has sub-units located in Darwin, Townsville and Brisbane. The unit traces its lineage back to the 1st Field Hospital, which was raised in the 1960s for service as part of Australia's contribution to the Vietnam War. Since then, the unit has changed names a couple of times and personnel have been deployed on numerous peacekeeping and warlike operations throughout Africa, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region.

1CHB provides close health support to deployed land force elements through the provision of Role 1 medical support. This entails forward positioning of assets within a battlespace to provide a number of health effects, "including collection from [point of injury], resuscitation, stabilisation and evacuation, and emergency diagnostics". It was previously organised as a "Level 3" (now described as "Role 3") health facility, tasked with the first formal initial wound surgery (surgical resuscitation) and medium to high intensity nursing care in the area of operations, as well as a definitive diagnosis of the casualty's condition; however, following the reorganisation of the Australian Army's health assets in late 2011, these functions have now been vested in the 2nd General Health and 3rd Health Support Battalions, and 1 CHB focuses primarily upon the following key tasks: "primary health care, first aid, triage, resuscitation, stabilization, evacuation, on-route care, casualty staging, ... [and] ... patient holding". In addition, the battalion can also provide limited rehabilitation and reconditioning services to deployed forces, and is responsible for management of combat medical supplies, and provides uniformed personnel to support civilian health personnel within garrison medical facilities.

1CHB's historical roots date back to Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War. In April 1966, during the Vietnam War the 2nd Field Ambulance was raised at Vung Tau. A year later, 8th Field Ambulance took over from 2nd Field Ambulance. Another year on, 1 April 1968, 1st Australian Field Hospital was raised and took over the Australian military hospital at Vung Tau from 8th Field Ambulance (for more details on the unit's involvement in the Vietnam War, see the Vietnam section below).