Evaluation of Functional Preparedness and Non Structural Safety of Different Health Units of Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences in Coping With Natural Disasters

Background: Every year, accidents and disasters occur in Iran and result in death and injuries of common people. People’s demand for health care units involves not only the requirement for medical centers but also staffs to work in them. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the performance readiness and non-structural functional safety of different health care centers and units of Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences in dealing with natural disasters. Materials and Methods: This is a cross-sectional descriptive and analytical study conducted in connection with the non-structural safety status of 837 health care centers and facilities at the headquarters of Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences in 2015. Established checklists were distributed among 24 assessment teams and completed by trained experts after assessing the status quo of the health units with relevance to the checklist. Results: The results showed that in terms of natural hazards, the highest and lowest likelihood of occurrences were related to earthquake (75%) and landslide (20%), respectively. In the field of functional readiness of health units and various other departments at the headquarters of health centers, fire extinguishing section had the highest percentage of readiness with 68%. However, the risk reduction measures and health insurance coverage had the lowest percentage of readiness in responding to disasters with 3% and 0%, respectively. The non-structural sanitary homes recorded 48% of readiness, whereas the network headquarters and health centers recorded 35% of readiness, which denoted the highest and lowest rate in the context of vulnerability, respectively.  Conclusion: In general, the results showed that the average performance percentage and non-structural vulnerability of health units and various other departments are moderate at the headquarters of health centers. According to the study results, disasters like earthquake, dust, flood, and landslide frequently required preparedness in the whole region.

Evaluation of Functional Preparedness and Non Structural Safety of Different Health Units of Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences in Coping With Natural Disasters Keywords:

Emergency preparedness , Safety , Crisis , Health facilities , Natural disasters