Examining disaster preparedness at Matara District General Hospital in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Globally, the frequency of natural disasters has increased significantly in recent decades. Hospitals are expected to remain functioning during and in the immediate aftermath of disasters as they are essential infrastructures in responding to them. Sri Lanka has experienced a number of natural disasters such as the tsunami of 2004, landslides and floods of 2017. Although the government has made some improvement mainly for infrastructure resiliency, inadequate disaster preparedness remains at many regional hospitals. Despite the critical role of hospitals in saving lives of disaster victims, very limited research has assessed disaster preparedness at hospitals in Sri Lanka. This study attempts to fill this gap by examining disaster preparedness at one district-level hospital in a disaster prone area. Field visits, phone interviews and an original questionnaire survey among doctors and nurses were conducted to better understand how they perceived the preparedness of this hospital. The results of the questionnaire survey revealed that most salient aspects of preparedness, such as human resources, communication, safety, security, transportation, critical supplies, and morgue capacity were inadequate. It also illustrated challenging areas in responding to a large number of disaster victims. Most of the respondents were unaware of the disaster response plan. Also, they had not participated in disaster drills. However, almost all the doctors and nurses demonstrated their willingness to improve their knowledge on disaster management and to serve in future disaster situations. This paper concludes with a number of recommendations to improve the disaster response capacity of Sri Lankan hospitals in the future.