During disasters, many people that happen to be at the nearby, both the injured and the soundly safe, experience panic. For the fear of losing their life, they all rush to nearby hospitals in search for treatment. This overwhelms these hospitals that should be treating the truly injured (De Lorenzo & Porter 1999). The principles of successful triage states that casualties should never be moved backwards against the influx of patients, patients who are in critical conditions should never be held back, life should be salvaged over limb, and that one should not stop to treat a patient and finally patients should never be moved except when there is risk of rain, darkness id falling, continued injury, availability of a medical institution and when a tactful movement is required. There was a big influx of trauma patients to the hospital close to the venue of the Boston Marathon where a bomb explosion occurred during the racing event two days ago. Patience were able to be handled are discharged to go their homes.
At the site of disaster, triages are used to prioritize the manner of treatment and transport to hospitals. START triage system is a sorting method used to separate the adults form older people using charts that have been well structured for these purpose the JUMPSTART triage is for the children who may have in involved in the disaster (De Lorenzo & Porter 1999).
The common lessons learnt in mass casualty situations are many and this has helped in the improvement of service delivery during such times. Secure triage sites should be identified fast to provide with a good environment for treatment of patients and avoid patients under triage. To avoid redundancy, communication systems or pathways should not be overcrowded.
The types of patient presentation in the START include; patience with respiration problems, perfusion and those that have been affected mentally. All this patience has there own complications and diverse treatment procedures are given to them.
Reference
De Lorenzo, R. & Porter, R. (1999). Tactical Emergency Care: Military and Operational Out-of-Hospital Medicine. Pearson Publishing
Windle, J. (2006). Manchester Triage Group Staff: Emergency triage. Cambridge. MA: Blackwell Publishers.
