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Hospital Disaster and Evacuation Planning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2012

J. Stanley Smith Jr
J. Stanley Smith Jr
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Surgery, Chief, Trauma Services, University Hospital, The Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Pennsylvania State University, P.O. Box 850, Hershey, PA, USA 17033.
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Extract

The world population is becoming increasingly reliant upon nuclear fission for the generation of electric power. In the wake of this activity, there have been two major accidents: Three Mile Island (TMI), near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, United States, in 1979; and Chernobyl, near Kiev, Ukraine, Soviet Union, in 1986. It is noteworthy that both of these accidents were related to human error and not to malfunction of the emergency back-up systems. So far, nuclear energy production plant accidents have occurred when either the data were misinterpreted or systems misguided by human function.

The major problem associated with a nuclear energy generating plant accident is the release of radiation. Even though the medical facilities may not be destroyed physically, they may be rendered useless because of contamination by radiation. Unfortunately, in the event of such an accidental release of radiation, all of the health-care facilities in the area will be contaminated. Therefore, all patients in hospitals and nursing homes will need to be evacuated to facilities outside of the contaminated area and not just relocated within the contaminated area.

Type
Brief Report
Information
Prehospital and Disaster Medicine , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , December 1990 , pp. 357 - 362
Copyright
Copyright © World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine 1990

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References

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