Emergency Field Hospital
Overview
The emergency field hospital is mobile and ready to deploy at a moment’s notice to provide emergency medical relief in disaster-stricken areas where medical infrastructure is damaged, overwhelmed or nonexistent.
Mission
The emergency field hospital expands the Samaritan’s Purse medical response capacity by quickly putting the right equipment and resources in disaster areas.
This resource allows Samaritan’s Purse to serve as many people as possible with emergency medical care while also ministering to their spiritual needs.
Specifics
The hospital is designed to be customizable, meaning each response is unique and tailored to the needs of the people in a disaster-stricken area.
At its maximum deployed capacity, the emergency field hospital is made up of all the components listed below and spans nearly an acre of land:
- Emergency room
- Laboratory
- Ultrasound imaging equipment
- More than 50 inpatient beds (may be deployed with as few as 20 beds)
- Two operating rooms
- Surgical sterilization tent
- Digital X-ray equipment
- Critical care unit
At maximum capacity, the emergency field hospital staff can treat more than 100 patients, perform 15 to 25 surgeries daily, and function as a full hospital.
A deployed hospital is staffed with 20 to 60 medical personnel, including highly skilled physicians, nurses, surgeons, lab technicians, anesthesiologists, pharmacists, water and sanitation engineers, and other support-services professionals.
Staff members are experts in their fields and participate in specialized training programs to prepare to serve during a disaster.
A specially-trained team deploys with the emergency field hospital to perform setup, with the goal to have the hospital operational within 24 hours of arriving on-site.
The emergency field hospital arrives with all of the necessary equipment to be self-sufficient, including generators and water purification systems.
Deployments
New York City: April 2020
Less than two weeks after Samaritan’s Purse opened an Emergency Field Hospital in Cremona, Italy, the international Christian relief organization opened a nearly identical unit in New York City’s Central Park. This marked an unprecedented medical response for Samaritan’s Purse as it was the first time that two Emergency Field Hospitals were deployed simultaneously. In partnership with Mount Sinai Health System, Samaritan’s Purse treated 190 patients at the facility.
Italy: March 2020
As northern Italy quickly became an epicenter of the Coronavirus pandemic, area hospitals were overrun with the sudden onslaught of patients. Samaritan’s Purse airlifted a 68-bed Emergency Field Hospital, specialized as a respiratory care unit, to Cremona, Italy to provide supplementary medical care in partnership with Cremona Hospital. Samaritan’s Purse medical staff treated 280 patients with the ICU at capacity within the first 24 hours of operation.
Bahamas: Sept. 2019
At the request of the World Health Organization and the Bahamas government, Samaritan’s Purse deployed its Emergency Field Hospital after Hurricane Dorian struck the islands as a Category 5 storm and damaged the local hospital. The 40-bed hospital in Freeport, Grand Bahamas provided medical personnel with the capacity to treat more than 100 patients per day with an emergency room, intensive care unit, pharmacy and an operating room for up to 10 surgeries per day. Samaritan’s Purse treated more than 8,000 patients with critical medical needs following the storm.
Mozambique: April 2019
Samaritan’s Purse deployed its Emergency Field Hospital to Mozambique after Cyclone Idai created widespread devastation and damaged the local hospital—leaving expectant mothers without a safe place to deliver their babies. At the request of the Ministry of Health, Samaritan’s Purse specifically constructed the Emergency Field Hospital with multiple maternal wards and an operating room to perform emergency C-sections to help meet this need. In addition to delivering 40 babies, 17 through C-sections, medical staff treated more than 5,700 patients at the hospital.
Iraq: Dec. 2016
Samaritan’s Purse deployed the emergency field hospital to Iraq as coalition forces and ISIS fighters fought for control of Mosul. Located 11 miles from the front line, Samaritan’s Purse provided emergency trauma care to more than 4,000 victims of war and performed more than 1,700 major surgeries.
Ecuador: April 2016
Following a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Ecuador, Samaritan’s Purse first deployed its emergency field hospital. This gave Samaritan’s Purse doctors and nurses a physical location to provide life-saving medical care to earthquake victims. Over the course of two months, Samaritan’s Purse medical staff treated 1,285 patients and performed 287 surgeries.
Multimedia Resources
Samaritan’s Purse, headed by Franklin Graham, is an international Christian relief and evangelism organization working in more than 100 countries to provide aid to victims of war, disease, disaster, poverty, famine and persecution. For more information, visit SamaritansPurse.or.kr.
