CBRN Defence in the Hosptial Environment April 1, 2012

Following a terrorist CBRNE attack in an urban environment, approximately 20% of those involved will remain in place (dead, severely wounded/contaminated) while 80% will flee in all possible directions seeking medical advice. Additionally, the ratio between contaminated vs. worried-but- well is 1:5 and this will overwhelm hospitals in a very short space of time, eventually leading to collapse. Based on the Tokyo sarin experience, all hospital and clinics in a big city will accept contaminated casualties. Therefore, all of them need to be adequately prepared to deal with CBRNE casualties.

It is generally believed that there is a gap in preparedness between the ambulance service and the hospitals’ emergency services in London and other major cities. Specialised questions on hospital CBRNE defence will be set and authorities involved will be asked to address them.

The main goal of this masterclass is to identify gaps in preparedness and to assist hospitals to correct them in the best way possible. An anthropocentric approach in planning will be proposed and the experience from the 2004 Olympic Games will be shared with the participants and, lastly, proposals for now and the near future will be analysed and discussed further.

Official Website: http://www.smi-online.co.uk/hospitalcbrn12.asp