Impact of Disasters on Hospitals from Aotearoa
Tracks
Norfolk Room
| Tuesday, July 15, 2025 |
| 1:25 PM - 1:45 PM |
Overview
Dr Natasha Duncan-Sutherland, Te Toka Tumai, Auckland
Details
Key Presentation Learnings:
1. It may only require a small number of casualties from a single incident to overwhelm a hospital system.
2. Emergency departments and hospitals require pre-warning of arriving casualties.
3. Having a pre-prepared plan and empowering emergency staff to make rapid decisions about flow during mass casualty incidents likely is key to the success of the hospital system in no-notice incidents.
Speaker
Dr Natasha Duncan-sutherland
Emergency Physician
Te Toka Tumai, Auckland
Impact of Disasters on Hospitals from Aotearoa
Abstract
Hospitals across Aotearoa and Australia are key organizations at the front-line of disaster response. While pre-hospital services are often thought to be most relevant, casualties from large incidents frequently arrive to hospital with no pre-hospital involvement.
Likewise, due to a number of community and ecological factors, public hospitals are currently often overwhelmed by the response to day to day over-capacity disasters, and further single mass casualty incidents have the potential to result in significant challenges in service provision.
This presentation aims to describe personal experience's of several disasters in relation to public hospital capacity to respond, and what other organizations can do to optimize outcomes.
Awareness of this concept will aid with inter-sectoral decision-making and communication.
Likewise, due to a number of community and ecological factors, public hospitals are currently often overwhelmed by the response to day to day over-capacity disasters, and further single mass casualty incidents have the potential to result in significant challenges in service provision.
This presentation aims to describe personal experience's of several disasters in relation to public hospital capacity to respond, and what other organizations can do to optimize outcomes.
Awareness of this concept will aid with inter-sectoral decision-making and communication.
Biography
Natasha is an Emergency Physician, who also has experience in research and emergency public health including trauma prevention and disasters. She is also the mother to three very adventurous children and teenagers, and is happiest at the top of a mountain.
