COVID-19 Pandemic and Surge Capacity

Disasters and pandemics experienced in recent years have shown the importance of emergency preparedness. Effectively responding to events leading to a large influx of patients that disrupt daily operations requires increased capacity. Not much resources may be available to recover losses in the current healthcare system. Therefore, plans should be made for the overflow capacity to accommodate a large number of patients before the disaster. In the face of a complex emergency epidemic, it is very important to identify and verify resources from the beginning of the outbreak in order to scale and use efficiently. It is necessary to make alternative plans and produce solutions against the worst possible scenario. In Coronavirus disease-2019 pandemics, as in all disasters and pandemics, trying to reduce the number of cases for overflow capacity, establishing alternative health facilities, minimizing the resource consumption of patients and increasing the bed capacity should be basic strategies. The need for excess resources arising in the overflow capacity experienced in a pandemic should be evaluated correctly and planning should be done accordingly. Therefore, it is necessary to create alternative areas. Projecting the underground car parks of the hospitals as underground hospitals in case of a nature-related disaster, and evaluating other closed areas within this scope; Again, the parks and reserve areas in the cities should be planned for the establishment of field hospitals against different scenarios against each natural disaster situation. With these plans, physical area demands that will occur in response to the overflow capacity can be supplied.