Pack it Up
Nepali officials have requested that all foreign rescue teams leave the country with a Friday deadline.
NYT reports that some rescue teams, such as one from Spain, said they had no intention of leaving.
Sounds like the nasty in-laws who refuse to depart.
Don’t expect to be invited back next time.
Should They Even Go In The First Place?
NYT also quoted Dr. Ian Norton, head of the World Health Organization’s foreign medical teams.
Norton says, ” thousands of rescuers — who often work as firefighters in their home countries — had saved a total of 16 people in the aftermath of the quake, and that about 50 foreign medical teams comprising nearly 10,000 people had saved hundreds of lives and even more limbs.
After the devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010, nearly 2,000 rescuers saved 13 people but nearly 30,000 Haitians died because of a lack of proper medical care.”
“I’m not saying rescue teams are bad, but there needs to be a balance,” Dr. Norton said.
I will: they’re bad.
UPS That Jack Hammer
Our professions are steeped in the theory of triage and effective triage is nowhere more essential than during a catastrophic mass casualty incident.
Part of triage is deploying resources in the most judicious manner to achieve maximum impact.
Sending these rescue teams abroad is in part a US diplomatic “show-the-flag” mission and a life-time ego boost for the participants involved.
When these teams muscle in and crowd out other more needed resources their efficacy and value are very much in doubt.
Some will undoubtedly say “But they saved lives.”
In our business, and in such an environment, that’s not the point.
If saving 16 potentially cost a 100, and it well might through the inability to provide life-saving medical care because medical teams were shouldered out by “rescue teams” at the logistical level, then harm was done.
These teams provide an essential resource on US soil where they can and do save lives through rapid rescue in extremely difficult circumstances, but foreign deployment is a dubious proposition especially when viewed strategically, rationally, and logically.