Hospitals to be checked for disaster readiness

The Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) will conduct an exercise to analyse disaster preparedness of hospitals across Delhi. The exercise is aimed at examining the existing system of management in event of disasters like flood, fire, epidemics and earthquake.

“We will do resource-mapping to see what infrastructure is available to cater to patients during disaster management. We have map about the availability of beds, medicines and other things. It is 360 degree disaster management that we are aiming at," said Kuldeep Singh Gangar, additional secretary (revenue) disaster management.

The exercise will be conducted for government hospitals, private hospitals and ambulances. "We will do mapping of paramedics too who are working for non-government organisations and other groups. This will give us a large workforce," said Gangar.

He said the government hospitals will be first approached in case of a disaster. Private hospitals will have to provide support in needed. In more serious situation the government will fall back upon the NGOs.

DDMA presently has 70,000 civil defence volunteers which will be increased to one lakh. “When the persons affected by the disaster say common people came and saved us in event of a crisis', they do not know it was the volunteers who are trained to deal with such situations,” said Gangar.

He said that the idea is to identify the nearest hospital according to the place of incident. It will also have to be mapped as to how much load each hospital can handle.

"The activity is held because recently we conducted the biggest state-level mock drill at more than 1,000 places at the same time," said Gangar.

P Chidambaram, Union Home Minister, in response to a Parliament question had said that all the future mock drills should take lessons from Delhi mock drill. The fire mock drill was conducted on February 6 in Delhi to evaluate the city’s disaster preparedness.