Disaster medicine deals with what earthquakes, floods, storms and other large-scale emergencies do to people’s health, from the first injuries to the weeks of disrupted services that follow. It is one of the areas of work of the International Medical Committee (IMC), the medical committee of the World Organization for Peace (WOFP).
A disaster does not end with the event itself. Injuries come first. Then, as housing, water, sanitation and health services fail, new health risks appear.
IMC concentrates on urgent medical care in the critical hours after earthquakes, hurricanes and floods, and on the health consequences that follow. The first phase of the response is covered in emergency medical response.
Each kind of disaster leaves a different pattern of medical needs. Knowing those patterns helps a response prepare instead of improvise.
Injuries from collapsed buildings arrive in large numbers within hours, just as damage to hospitals and roads reduces the capacity to treat them.
Health facilities flood, communities are cut off and drinking water becomes unsafe. In the following weeks the risk of water-borne and vector-borne disease rises, so prevention matters as much as immediate care.
Injuries come together with the loss of shelter, power and communications, which affects patients and health services alike.
People who lose their homes move into shelters where overcrowding creates new health risks and regular care is interrupted.
When clinics are damaged or overwhelmed, vaccination, maternal care and the treatment of chronic illness can stop, with effects that often outlast the emergency.
Some events exceed what local health systems can absorb. The medical response then depends on many actors working to the same plan.
IMC adapts its general humanitarian medical response model to the conditions of a disaster, in four stages. It is a way of working, not a record of past interventions.
Establishing the health impact: who has been affected, what state local health facilities are in and which medical needs are most urgent, assessed with local authorities and the WOFP network.
Sending limited resources to the most urgent needs first, with particular attention to those at greatest risk: the injured, pregnant women, young children, older people and people with chronic illness.
Organizing medical support with health authorities, agencies and local organizations, including the supplies and transport needed to reach the affected area.
Planning for the weeks after the event, when interrupted services and new risks can do lasting harm.
IMC’s work in disaster settings centers on four needs:
Urgent medical care and stabilization in the hours following the event.
Attention to risks linked to water, sanitation and overcrowding in temporary shelters.
The health needs of people living in shelters or with host communities after losing their homes.
The continuity of routine care interrupted by the disaster, such as maternal and child health and the treatment of chronic conditions.
Disasters bring many responders together in a short time. Without coordination, some needs go unmet while others are covered twice. Local health authorities usually know the area, its facilities and its population best.
IMC works with health authorities, local organizations and the humanitarian network of the World Organization for Peace, so that its medical support adds to what local health services can do and does not replace them.
After a disaster, people may have lost relatives, homes and livelihoods. Medical care in these conditions has to attend to the person as well as the injury: explaining decisions, respecting privacy, treating every patient with dignity.
That is the commitment of IMC’s humanitarian medical mission: timely and dignified care, without distinction of origin, belief or condition.
Emergency medical response covers the first phase of any crisis: initial needs assessment, coordination and medical care.
