Comparative study of two patterns of medical rescue for the international disaster relief

Objective To study how to enhance the effectiveness of international disaster relief in order to explore the features and applications of two different patterns of medical rescue.Methods A retrospective analysis of the experiences of the China International Relief Team,including the constitution of the team,working hours on the disaster area,and the numbers of patients rescued per doctor per day,during the 12 occasions of international mission over the past 10 years since the team founded.Results Since the first time for international rescue operation acted in Algeria in 2003,the China International Search and Rescue (CISAR) team has taken part in 12 humanitarian relief operations which can be categorized into two patterns of medical rescue:the first pattern is integrated by search,rescue and initial medical service on site,the second one is exclusively for medical relief (the first pattern consisting of 15.4％ medical staff and 61.4％ medical staff in the second pattern).According to the former pattern,CISAR team should arrive at the stricken area of earthquake less than 3 days and withdraw after 7 - 10 days of work with about 10.8average working days.Four survivors trapped in collapsed buildings were rescued during the six international rescue operations,and 662 sick and casualties on average were treated each time.The latter pattern often carried out by CISAR team after the work of the former pattern (over 10 days after the disaster) had been done with average working time of 17.8 days.There were 6812 patients on average treated in each time.Comparison between the two patterns showed that the latter one needed more medical staff and longer working days.The data of these two patterns varies significantly. Conclusions The search and rescue pattern is different from the pattern of exclusively medical rescue,and the urban search and rescue team is integrated the search and rescue with medical service,which was proposed by the United States,because of its versatility in the stricken areas of earthquake.It gives lot of useful information to the developing countries for setting up modern relief teams.The time and mode of sending a search and rescue team or a medical team to the stricken area of disaster depend on the assessment of disaster and the requirements of the local government.The capability of the search and rescue team can be extended beyond the ruins,but the capability of the medical team can hardly extend deep enough beneath the ruins,so that the first pattern is much superior to the second one.To set up a local relief team should meet the requirement of the local government to deal with different kinds of disaster. Key words: Disaster; International relief; Medical model