Field hospitals are deployed in a wide range of scenarios, including natural and man-made disasters.
Earthquakes, tsunamis, storms, floods, drought, famine, epidemics, armed conflicts, and refugee crises
each have their unique characteristics. These events
can cause massive destruction, with many deaths,
severe injuries, and displaced people. They can occur
in developed countries, in remote conflict zones, or in
countries where the medical systems struggle to deliver basic health care during normal times and may be
overwhelmed during a disaster, lacking the resources
to treat a large number of injuries and fill the concomitant medical needs. This has prompted the
deployment of many emergency medical teams
(EMTs) to disaster areas. These EMTs vary from
small mobile units through fixed ambulatory clinics
to field hospitals of various sizes and capabilities. They
can be dispatched by military or civilian governmental agencies and by nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs). EMTs working in a field hospital in a disaster
zone or austere environment operate under circumstances markedly different from their everyday
experience. There is a large imbalance between the
huge needs and the limited capabilities to meet them.
The operation of field hospitals under these circumstances requires adaptation to the unique environment. This is necessary in both organizational and
clinical protocols, as well as in ethical considerations,
to maintain standards of care and deliver optimal
treatment to individual patients while considering
that sometimes compromises need to be made to do
the greatest good for the greatest number