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Paras Hospitals, Gurgaon associated with the Faculty of Disaster Medicine to launch a specialized course that aims at creating awareness about Disaster Medicine and encourage specialists – Emergency Medicine, General Medicine, Orthopedics, Trauma, Family Medicine, Infectious Diseases and Public Health, who are currently working as Consultants in recognized Healthcare Institutes of India, to become specialists in Disaster Medicine.

The course was inaugurated at AeroCity New Delhi and can be described as a 4 days foundation course designed to improve the understanding of disasters and how current scientific and clinical knowledge can be enhanced to plan and manage health care needs during disasters.  During this program, the delegate will develop analytical skills to understand various types of disasters, medical emergencies which may arise from the disasters, strategic planning for healthcare, understanding of the diversity of clinical needs post-disasters and role of problem-based learning in disaster medicine.  The program also includes workshops, simulations exercises, tabletop exercises focusing on training the trainers and sessions on research methods adopted in Disaster Medicine.

Dr. Imtiyaz Gani, Principal Consultant&HOD, Department of Emergency Medicine, Paras Hospitals, Gurgaon shares,“Disasters are the ultimate test of emergency response capability. The ability to effectively deal with disasters is becoming more relevant because of factors that tend to increase risk. Urbanization and the climate change has made us all susceptible to the natural calamities or disasters that account for 70% of the death burden in India.  The natural disasters consist of earthquakes, floods, landslides, cyclones, Tsunamis, and heatwaves.The man-made disasters include nuclear, biological and chemical disasters that can have a wide impact on human life. A Recent report highlighted that 2015 disasters killed 26000 people and cost more than $ 85 billion. However, despite the known risk of impending disasters and the impact and the risk that they pose to humans, we are still far behind in educating people on how to act in an emergency or a disaster. In fact, we suffer from a huger shortage of staff who specialize in disaster management. This course aims at addressing the shortage and encouraging the specialists to become adept in Disaster Medicine.”

A board member of the Faculty, Dr. PunidhaKaliaperumal, Senior Consultant, Department of Emergency Medicine, Paras Hospitals, who has done her Masters in Disaster Medicine expresses “India has the manpower and raw resources. With evidence-based training and proper channeling, we as a country can attain international standards in this field. She calls for private-public partnerships in healthcare to work towards this common goal”.

More than 31 doctors all across the country attended the event and the workshop.

Dr. Dharminder Nagar, Managing Director, Paras Health was present at the inaugural session and shared his valuable thoughts on the event, “This is a noteworthy step. Today we need integrated medical systems and expertise that can come in handy in time of disasters- both natural and man-made. Quick thinking and training can help us act fast and save lives.  We propose that the specialists should also devise a specialized module for the common man through which they can be trained on disaster management and response protocols.”