Pediatric Mass Casualty Incident: A Real Crisis Mandating Inter-Disciplinary Coordination, Considering Ethical Issues

Abstract

Interdisciplinary coordination of the director of crisis committee with emergency and other department's staff, financial support team, public relations, rehabilitation team,and police are required to successfully manage mass casualty incidents (MCIs). Prevention, staff training, equipment availability, clear-cut responsibilities and predicting all requirements are crucial aspects to be prepared (1). The task force for Mass Critical Care published guidance for adult MCI in 2008; For children, 17 experts of the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education developed recommendations for pediatric MCI (2). Certain guidelines have been suggested by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and subsequently published in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine as a supplement as well as the more recent supplement in CHEST that updates the previous works (3, 4). Although the literature has provided sufficient evidence managing the situation, some major difficulties still exist in the stage of response to the crisis. Lack of equipment especially in international crises may lead to neglect moribund patients. This problem is more prominent for pediatric patients (5, 6). Personnel shortage mandates to accept the less-qualified staff contribution for pediatric care