Are Indonesian Hospitals Ready to Response to Disaster? Hospital Disaster Preparedness in West Java Province
Author(s): Suparni, Fatma Lestari*, Ede Surya Darmawan, Robiana Modjo and Senol Dane
Abstract
Introduction: Hospital is an overly complex facility that plays an important role in medical response delivery during disasters. Many hospitals have collapsed or been damaged and become non-functional because of a disaster. Hospital needs to have the ability to run its normal functions during a disaster. However, studies show that hospitals located in disaster areas are not wellprepared to response to disasters due to damages caused by the disasters as well as confusion over roles and responsibilities, poor communication, lack of planning, suboptimal training, and a lack of hospital integration into community disaster planning. This can lead to a situation where the hospital is not prepared to response to disaster. Hospital preparedness plan is part of the disaster plan and should be built on a standardized protocol. Indonesia has potential risks of disasters. Nevertheless, information on the current levels of safety as well as the emergency and disaster management in hospitals is limited. This study aimed to evaluate the readiness of hospitals in Indonesia to respond to disasters.
Methods: The Indonesian version of HSI checklist from the World Health Organization (Pan American Health Organization/WHO; 2015) was used to assess hospital emergency and disaster management was translated into Bahasa Indonesia. This checklist consists of several sub-modules. The score from the overall modules was then used to categorize the Emergency and Disaster Management in a hospital into one of the following three categories: A) safe; B) at risk; or C) inadequate.
Results: All public hospitals in this study (n=5) were categorized as level B hospital, meaning that the hospitals only had limited emergency and disaster response as well as recovery planning. Coordination regarding emergency and disaster management activities was limited.
Conclusion: Hospital Disaster Preparedness is very important in disaster management. Therefore, it is mandatory that hospitals have good commitment and policies as well as good support for Hospital Safety, especially for Hospital Disaster Preparedness.