Tribune News Network
Doha
The Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC) recently conducted a readiness exercise to enhance its capacity for managing mass casualty incidents. The exercise was carried out across six PHCC health centres: Al Sadd, Leabaib, Al Mashaf, Qatar University, Muaither, and Al Wajbah, from 10:30 am to 5:30 pm.
Mass casualty incidents pose significant challenges to healthcare systems, requiring effective preparedness and response strategies. Such incidents can result from natural disasters, terrorist attacks, unnatural accidents or pandemics, leading to an overwhelming number of victims that exceed the capacity of local emergency services.
The increasing frequency and complexity of these events underscore the importance of regular training and simulation exercises to bolster the readiness of healthcare facilities and their staff.
The primary goal of the comprehensive mass casualty management exercise was to evaluate the performance of the current system in handling a mass casualty incident affecting PHCC health centres. It aimed to validate the effectiveness of existing plans and protocols, identify strengths to reinforce, address weaknesses, and enhance collaboration and communication across departments to achieve shared goals.
Exercise Objectives
• Assess the efficiency and effectiveness of the Major Incident Command Center (MICC) in activating, coordinating, and managing health centers during mass casualty incidents.
• Evaluate the ability of community healthcare center and emergency response team to effectively activate and manage clinical operations, resource allocation, security services, and business continuity during a mass casualty incident.
• Assess the ability of health centres to manage victims of mass casualty incidents efficiently and safely.
• Evaluate the capacity of health centres to handle visitors and media during mass casualty incidents.
• Test the capability of health centers to mobilise, utilise and demobilise resources effectively during a mass casualty incident.
• Build capacity and provide a realistic training environment for healthcare staff.
• Simulate realistic scenarios with victims of varying degrees of injury and the simultaneous management of visitors and media during mass casualty incidents.
• Strengthen readiness and improve collaboration protocols and communication systems across various departments.
• Assess the efficiency and effectiveness of the MICC in activating, coordinating, and managing health centers during mass casualty incidents.
