The Challenge of Allocating Scarce Medical Resources During a Disaster in a Low Income Country: A Case Study from the 2010 Haitian Earthquake

Annekathryn Goodman* and Lynn Black

The Challenge of Allocating Scarce Medical Resources During a Disaster in a Low Income Country: A Case Study from the 2010 Haitian Earthquake.

Scarce medical resources during a natural disaster challenge the existing protocols for medical
intervention. Triage decisions about which patient to care for can be extremely stressful for a medical team. This case analysis describes the experience of one mobile field hospital in Haiti in the aftermath of the January 12, 2010 earthquake.

The medical team was confronted with the need to choose which of three critically ill patients should receive the remaining, dwindling oxygen supply. The ethical framework around these decisions is discussed.

Natural disasters in low income countries rapidly deplete available medical and social
resources. Rescue teams are confronted with the challenge of medical triage of critically ill
patients when there are not enough supplies to treat everyone.

The complex and challenging decision to shift from active to palliative care in the
disaster setting is rarely straight forward. The experience of one disaster
team during their deployment after the 2010 Haiti earthquake is
described and analyzed.

When on deployment, the disaster team members are federal employees. The command structure of NDMS follows the incident command system of the military.

In Haiti, our team received our orders from our Commander in-Chief in Washington. On the ground, a direct commander in chief was selected. The organization structure of the team followed the incident
command structure set by our CIC. Our CIC was an EMT fireman. He
organized the 63 team members into modules based on our work assignments.

Palliat Med Hosp Care Open J. 2015; 1(1): 24-29. doi: 10.17140/PMHCOJ-1-105

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