As Northern Israel’s only Level-1 trauma center, Rambam Health Care Campus (Rambam) in Haifa, Israel, annually performs multiple drills to prepare for mass casualty situations. Since October 7, ongoing drills have focused on wartime scenarios.
Medical and emergency workers practice on a manikin. Photography: Rambam HCC.
Days before Iran’s missile attack on Israel, hundreds of healthcare personnel participated in an emergency drill. Participants included doctors, nurses, and medics, from Rambam, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and Magen David Adom (MDA)—Israel’s emergency response unit. The drill scenario focused on admitting and treating residents injured by a direct missile hit on an apartment block. All participants focused on a real-time simulation of the evacuation, arrival, and admission of 100 casualties to the ER, and their transfer to other hospital departments for ongoing diagnostics and care such as imaging and surgery. Across the hospital, medical and administrative staff duties were synchronized, and routes for moving patients, unhindered across the hospital grounds were practiced. During the drill, some existing, noncritical patients were transferred to nearby hospitals.
Possible wartime injuries were simulated on medical manikins and actors. In a real-life scenario, Rambam will treat a victim’s physical injuries and emotional trauma, but the unique emotional needs of hospital staff, who will work 24/7, must also be addressed.
Rambam’s three-level underground parking lot converts into a fortified underground emergency hospital (FUEH) within 72 hours and is the largest facility of its kind in the world. At the onset of the war, in collaboration with Israel’s Ministry of Health and the IDF’s Home Front Command, Rambam readied the FUEH for a mass casualty situation. Since then, Rambam, has performed multiple simulations and drills in the FUEH.
The drill was featured in the Times of Israel and media outlets across Europe.
Comments