Emergency Preparedness is a key element of International Committee of the Red Cross – ICRC’s engagement and support to health systems. Mass Casualty Incident Training (MCI Training) is an institutional course that helps health services, prehospital and in hospital, to develop a new or improve an existing Mass Casualty Plan. It also gives guidance about how to stress and test the system with targeted simulation and training.
In Nigeria the ICRC mobile surgical team, the HQ Emergency Medicine Specialist together with the resident health team, delivered a 3-day MCI Training in Maiduguri State Specialist Hospital as part of a phased exit and handover plan. This helped to build the health system capabilities and capacities to respond to the frequent conflict related mass casualties occurring in Borno state including utilization of standard communication and triage tools and action cards. Emergo Train System table-top exercises were also used and culminated in a large mass casualty exercise which generated an integrated coordinated response.
In the week of the course the hospital received and treated patients from multiple mass casualty incidents. This MCI Training with Emergo Train System training allowed clinical departments and support services to take part in constructive exchanges on lessons learnt and to brainstorm on the way forward and update their hospital’s Mass Casualty Plan.
ICRC’s MCI Training is held in several countries and some photos are from exercises also in Yemen and Abuja, Nigeria.
