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Health Care Needs in the Aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico: A Perspective from Federal Medical Shelter Manatí
- Source :
- Prehospital and Disaster Medicine. 36:260-264
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2021.
-
Abstract
- Introduction:On September 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 hurricane, swept across Puerto Rico (PR), wreaking devastation to PR’s power, water, and health care infrastructure. To address the imminent humanitarian crisis, the US government mobilized Federal Medical Shelters (FMS) to serve the needs of hurricane victims. This study’s objective was to provide a description of the patients seeking emergency care at FMS and the changes in their needs over time.Methods:This retrospective, cross-sectional study included all patients presenting to the FMS Manatí from October 6, two weeks after Hurricane Maria’s landfall, to November 2, 2017. Categories were created to catalogue the nature of new acute medical issues by patients presenting to the Shelter. Descriptive, graphical analyses were performed to assess changes to presenting complaints over time, and by age groups defined as infant (age ≤1 years), child (1 year < age ≤10 years), adolescent (10 years < age ≤ 25 years), and adult (age > 25 years).Results:Over the 30-day period, 5,268 patients were seen in the FMS seeking medical care (average 188.1 patients per day), spending less than five hours in the facility. The distribution of patients’ age was bimodal: the first peak at one year and the second at age 50. The most common patient complaint was infection (38.8%), then musculoskeletal (MSK) complaints (11.8%) and management of chronic medical conditions (11.8%). The proportion of patients presenting with chronic disease complaints declined over the course of the period of observation (21.4% on Day 4 to 8.0% on Day 30) while the proportion of patients presenting with infection increased (31.0% on Day 4 to 48.6% on Day 30). Infection complaints were highest in all age groups, but most in infxants (80.2%), while MSK and chronic disease complaints were highest in adults (14.9% and 14.9%, respectively).Conclusion:Infection treatment and chronic disease management were important medical needs facing patients seeking care at FMS Manatí after Hurricane Maria. These findings suggest that basic needs related to sanitation and shelter remained important weeks after the hurricane, and a focus on access to medications, infection control, and injury prevention/management after a disaster needs to be prioritized during disaster response.
- Subjects :
- Adult
medicine.medical_specialty
Adolescent
Sanitation
Humanitarian crisis
Emergency Nursing
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Injury prevention
Health care
medicine
Complaint
Humans
Infection control
030212 general & internal medicine
Child
Retrospective Studies
030505 public health
Cyclonic Storms
business.industry
Puerto Rico
Infant
Middle Aged
Cross-Sectional Studies
Family medicine
Emergency Medicine
Basic needs
0305 other medical science
business
Delivery of Health Care
Disaster medicine
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 19451938 and 1049023X
- Volume :
- 36
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Prehospital and Disaster Medicine
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....e4c8b35671d320de39117a26adc7dcba