CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background information

The issues of disaster management dates back to more than 20 years ago, with difficulties in undertaking disaster management assessments leading to calls for continued development of standardized tools (Brandt et al., 2009). The continued occurrence and magnitude of disasters have prompted World Health Organization (WHO) and other organizations to come up with best practice models for hospitals and disaster management (Traub, et al., 2007; Adams, 2009; De Lorenzo, 2007). Over the years there have been efforts by WHO and other technical bodies in promoting hospital preparedness, examples being the 2008-9 world disaster reduction campaign of “hospitals safe from disasters” and more recently the 2010-11 “one million safe schools and hospitals” initiative. This is because of the need to continue strengthening the healthcare system’s preparedness and response for mass casualties with a view of saving as many lives as possible when disasters occur.

World events, such as the Singapore Airline crash in Taiwan in 2000, the attack on the World Trade Centre of 11 September 2001, severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (SARS) of 2003, Pakistan earthquake of 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita of 2005 and the more recent Japanese earthquake and Tsunami of 2011, reaffirmed the need for disaster research to understand how people coped and survived when faced with such calamities. Those events also reaffirmed the limited understanding of hazard management, reinforcing the need for research (Ressler, 2007). Because of disasters that occurred throughout the world, various organizations in the USA made efforts aimed at improving emergency preparedness and response. For example the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations

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