Home Front Command Holds Mass Casualty Drill at Hospital

On Tuesday (July 12), the Home Front Command held a drill at Kaplan Hospital, located in Rehovot . The mass casualty drill is conducted every three years. It simulated a series of car crashes involving of some 100 casualties and checked the readiness and performance of the hospital.

“More than 100 casualties, this is a number that all hospitals are asked to be prepared for routinely”, said Lieutenant Colonel Yehuda Dahan, head of hospital assessments.

In order to make the drill as realistic as possible, the only resources used were those available at the hospital at the time of the drill. “That means if there are 10 operating rooms in the hospital and six are occupied on the day of the drill, only four are available to doctors during the drill,” Lt. Col. Dahan said.

The head of the Home Font Command, Maj. Gen. Eyal Eisenberg attended the drill.

Maj. Gen. Eyal Eisenberg at Home Front Command drill (Photo: Sgt. Iris Lainer, IDF Spokesperson Unit)

“This hospital prepared for this drill for five months in conjunction with the Home Front Command and Magen David Adom,” said Northern Command medical chief Col. Ariel Bar. “The initial results show that the hospital was well prepared. Now we will meet and see if this was actually the case”.

Simulating casualties as part of the Home Front Command drill (Photo: Sgt. Iris Lainer, IDF Spokesperson Unit)

This drill follows the nationwide civil-defense drill which took place three weeks ago,  “Turning Point 5″. The drill was part of a week long exercise that trained civilians in facing various scenarios such as simulated chemical missile attack on a northern Israeli city.