Military official says Home Front Command preparing hospitals for range of security threats including large-scale missile attacks.
The IDF Home Front Command is preparing all hospitals in Israel for a range of security threats, including large-scale missile attacks and chemical attacks, a senior military sourcetold The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.
The preparations have been planned three years in advance, and bear no relation to current events or recent threat assessments. Exercises include training hospital staff to deal with conventional missile attacks, mass-casualty incidents and “mega-mass casualty incidents,” – involving 1,000 or more injuries.
“We train a lot for chemical weapons,” a Home Front Command source said. “This is our business, and only ours. There is no room for error.”
The drills form the only basis for dealing with a chemical weapon attack, the source stressed, “since we have no experience with this.”
The threat of a chemical attack from neighboring Syria is very low, but the defense community’s contingency planning includes steps to both prevent and cope with such a threat.
During the drills, people simulating patients are rushed into hospitals with notes attached to them explaining their particular scenario. On average, hospitals deal with 200 “patients” during the simulations – though on some occasions, the number has been as high as 700.
The Home Front Command has also created underground areas in major hospitals such as Ichilov in Tel Aviv and Rambam in Haifa, so intensive care and pregnancy wards can be transferred there in the case of missile attacks.
The Jerusalem Post has the full article
