Emergency Inflatable Hospitals
It’s over 5 years since the tsunami which claimed the lives of my uncle and his two young children. While they were not able to survive that calamity, it’s admirable how the Thais managed to give maximum help to those who were affected. One of my cousins, who was found with severe injuries but still alive after the tsunami, spent close to 3 weeks in the intensive care unit. No expense was spared. She was given the best antibiotics, was hooked to a respirator during all that time, had chest tubes for her hydropneumothorax and was eventually hooked to a dialysis machine, all in the vain effort of trying to save her life. My aunt, her mom, wasn’t billed anything at all.
While we mourned and continue to mourn for her eventual passing at the young age of 10, we often thought that if it happened in one of the outlying islands here, her chances of survival would even be slimmer, since we really do not have the resources for this sort of calamity, especially outside the major cities.
Now, with disasters happening all around the world, there is a need for an “instant” hospital which would address the need for emergency medical services in such conditions and with so many people affected. I came across an article describing so called emergency inflatable hospitals (big tents that could accommodate hospital beds) and I thought that we should have something like that here in the Philippines, so that we can immediately address the need for a wide scale calamity.
Maybe the government can add this to either their Disaster Preparedness Fund (or whatever appropriate division), aside from rubber boats for floods and helicopters for rescue missions.
Source: http://news.discovery.com/tech/creating-hospitals-from-thin-air.html