World Health Day: WHO calls to make hospitals safe in emergencies

7 April 2009. New-York – Kyiv – This year’s World Health Day is observed under the slogan "Save lives. Make hospitals safe in emergencies". On this occasion WHO Director-General stressed that with our world of frequent extreme weather events and armed conflicts it is crucial to ensure that health facilities and hospitals are able to save lives in emergency situations. UN Secretary-General in his message urged the world community to protect public health by designing and building health care facilities that are safe from natural disasters.     

The World Health Organization is  today recommending six core actions that governments, public health authorities and hospital managers can undertake to make their  health facilities safe during emergencies.  These include training health workers, designing and building safe hospitals, retrofitting existing health facilities to make them more resilient and  ensuring staff and supplies are secure during  natural disasters, conflicts, outbreaks and other emergencies.

To mark today's celebration of World Health Day, WHO is focussing attention on the large numbers of lives that can be saved during earthquakes, floods , conflicts  and other emergencies if hospitals are better designed and constructed and health staff well trained to respond.  

“With our world threatened by the harmful effects of climate change, more frequent extreme weather events and armed conflicts, it is crucial that we all do more to ensure that health care is available at all times to our citizens , before, during, or after a disaster” said WHO Director - General Dr. Margaret Chan.

Too often, health facilities are the first casualties of emergencies. This means that health workers are killed and wounded, that services are not available to treat survivors and that large investments of valuable health funding in health facility construction and equipment are squandered.

Relatively inexpensive investments in infrastructure can save lives during disasters. Retrofitting non-structural elements in an otherwise structurally sound facility costs about 1% of the hospital’s budget but will protect about 90% of its value. 

Infectious disease outbreaks are another form of public health emergency that staff should be trained for. In areas affected by conflicts, hospitals and clinics should be allowed to function by all parties in line with international humanitarian law

WHO is urging all ministries of health to review the safety of existing health facilities and to ensure that any new facilities are built with safety in mind. Practical and effective low cost measures such as protecting equipment, developing emergency preparedness plans and training staff can help make health facilities safer, better prepared and more functional in emergencies

The six core actions that governments, public health authorities and others who operate hospitals and health care facilities can take are:

1. Assess the security of your hospital
2. Protect and train health workers for emergencies
3. Plan for emergency response
4. Design and build resilient hospitals
5. Adopt national policies and programmes for safe hospitals
6. Protect equipment, medicines and supplies

UN Secretary-General Message on World Health Day:

“When disaster strikes, well-prepared, functioning medical services are a priority.  Floods, earthquakes and other natural disasters can take a terrible toll on human life.  So, too, can infectious disease outbreaks and man-made disasters, such as chemical spills or radiation accidents.  Hospitals, clinics and other health facilities must react swiftly and efficiently.  They must also provide safe havens, and not become disaster zones themselves. 

When a hospital collapses in an earthquake, burying patients and staff, the human cost multiplies.  When an infectious disease spreads because a hospital is poorly ventilated or constructed, or because health care workers lack adequate training, we are failing people at their most vulnerable.

To focus attention on these simple but important principles, World Health Day for 2009 has adopted the campaign slogan: "Save lives. Make hospitals safe in emergencies".  It is a global call to action for countries to work to prepare their health systems for emergencies.

Collaboration between different United Nations entities and other international actors is crucial to helping countries to achieve this goal.  The World Disaster Reduction Campaign for 2008–2009 has pooled the efforts of the World Health Organization, the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction and the World Bank towards making health facilities more able to stand up to cyclones, earthquakes and other hazards.

We must protect public health by designing and building health care facilities that are safe from natural disasters.  We must also ensure they are not targeted during conflicts.  Health care workers must be trained to work safely in emergencies, so they can save lives, rather than becoming victims themselves.  And we must guarantee the continuity of the health services that a community relies on, such as immunizations, dialysis and the delivery of babies, once the immediate emergency has passed.

We cannot prevent all disasters.  But we can work together to ensure that when they occur, hospitals and other health facilities are ready and able to save lives”.

More information about the World Health Day 2009 campaign on improving health facility safety, preparedness and response to emergencies can be found on http://www.who.int/world-health-day/2009/en/index.html

and http://www.euro.who.int/whd09