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Potential Roles of Military-Specific Response to Natural Disasters—Analysis of the Rapid Deployment of a Mobile Surgical Team to the 2007 Peruvian Earthquake

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2012

Richard Malish ,
David E. Oliver ,
Robert M. Rush Jr. ,
Esmeraldo Zarzabal ,
Michael J. Sigmon  and
Frederick M. Burkle Jr.
Richard Malish*
Affiliation:
Mobile Surgical Team, Medical Element, Joint Task Force Bravo, Soto Cano Airbase, Honduras Department of Medicine, Womack Army Medical Center, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, USA Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
David E. Oliver
Affiliation:
C Company, 2/7th Special Forces Group (Airborne), Fort Bragg, North Carolina, USA
Robert M. Rush Jr.
Affiliation:
Mobile Surgical Team, Medical Element, Joint Task Force Bravo, Soto Cano Airbase, Honduras Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland, USA Department of Surgery, Madigan Army Medical Center, Tacoma, Washington, USA
Esmeraldo Zarzabal
Affiliation:
Mobile Surgical Team, Medical Element, Joint Task Force Bravo, Soto Cano Airbase, Honduras
Michael J. Sigmon
Affiliation:
Mobile Surgical Team, Medical Element, Joint Task Force Bravo, Soto Cano Airbase, Honduras
Frederick M. Burkle Jr.
Affiliation:
Senior Fellow, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
*
223 Park StreetFayetteville, North Carolina 28305USA E-mail: rgmalish@yahoo.com
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Abstract

The August 2007 earthquake in Peru resulted in the loss of critical health infrastructure and resource capacity. A regionally located United States Military Mobile Surgical Team was deployed and operational within 48 hours. However, a post-mission analysis confirmed a low yield from the military surgical resource. The experience of the team suggests that non-surgical medical, transportation, and logistical resources filled essential gaps in health assessment, evacuation, and essential primary care in an otherwise resource-poor surge response capability. Due to an absence of outcomes data, the true effect of the mission on population health remains unknown. Militaries should focus their disaster response efforts on employment of logistics, primary medical care, and transportation/evacuation. Future response strategies should be evidence-based and incorporate a means of quantifying outcomes.

Keywords

civil-military coordinationdisasterdisaster medicineearthquakesmobile surgical teamsnatural hazards
Type
Special Report
Information
Prehospital and Disaster Medicine , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , February 2009 , pp. 3 - 8
Copyright
Copyright © World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine 2009

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