OBJECTIVES To assess current medical staffing levels within the Hospital Referral System in the City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality, South Africa, and analyze the surge capacity needs to prepare for the potential of a conventional mass casualty incident during a planned mass gathering. METHODS Query of all available medical databases of both state employees and private medical personn...

Bleeding because of excessive anticoagulation is a well-recognized complication of coumadin therapy. In cases of potentially life-threatening bleeding such as intracranial haemorrhage, reversal of anticoagulation should be carried out as soon as possible. Here we report the case of an emergency patient in whom excessive anticoagulation was diagnosed at the scene by emergency medical service per...

background patients’ escape from hospital imposes a significant cost to patients as well as the health system. besides, for these patients, exposure to adverse events (such as suicide, self-harm, violence and harm to hospital reputation) are more likely to occur compared to others. the present study aimed to determine the characteristics of the absconding patients in a general hospital through ...

The introduction of a hand-held drench hose into a district general hospital accident and emergency department, for the emergency irrigation of chemically injured eyes is reported. The hose is described, together with the technique of irrigation. The advantages that a high-flow, low pressure system affords over conventional irrigation methods are discussed. The system appears to offer a simple,...

Frequent caretaking of severely ill, dying, and dead people as well as bereaved close relatives could involve too much stress for emergency personnel to be satisfied with the job situation. Screening for critical aspects for work satisfaction and endurance at ambulance and emergency rooms would provide useful information to the workers themselves, their management, and for pre-hospital acute ro...

Disasters disproportionally affect vulnerable, technology-dependent people, including preterm and critically ill newborn infants. It is important for health care providers to be aware of and prepared for the potential consequences of disasters for the NICU. Neonatal intensive care personnel can provide specialized expertise for their hospital, community, and regional emergency preparedness plan...

objective: patient satisfaction is one of the most important indicators for measuring the quality of emergency services and health care. the purpose of this study was to evaluate the patients’ satisfaction in the emergency department (ed) of sina hospital. methods: this descriptive, cross-sectional study was performed during one month in sina hospital in 2014. data were collected by a questionn...

introduction: hospitals are often considered to be the forefront of countering incidents, some of which result from a wide range of incidents including industrial accidents, natural outbreaks of disease, and regional accidents called chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (cbrn) accidents. this study was conducted to assess the level of preparedness, capacity, and capability of respond...

The clinical provision of medical care by emergency medical services (EMS) providers in the out-of-hospital environment and the operation of EMS systems to provide that care are unique in the medical arena. There is a substantive difference in the experience of individuals who provide medical care in the out-of-hospital setting and the experience of those who provide similar care in the hospita...

Through the experience of being stationed on the USS Mercy hospital ship (T-AH19) and a preliminary comprehension of the personnel and material arrangements, processing and functional formats, and the multi-platform contributions of US Navy hospital ships, we briefly introduce the characteristics of US hospital ships regarding medical support, emergency rescue exercises, communications and trai...