Healthcare resilience to extreme events: a hospital staff perspective

Abstract

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic demonstrated how vulnerable and unprepared most health-care sectors are to major disasters. Several studies have been published reporting factors that affect staff attendance during extreme events. However, these factors are limited and do not provide a full picture of why staff do or do not attend workplaces during major emergencies nor the impact of staff absences on healthcare service delivery. This study presents the factors influencing staff attendance during an extreme event and the impact staff attendance has on the continuity of healthcare services in one of the several independent British Isles hospitals. This study highlights that staff attendance depends on many contributors such as workload, stress, motivation, proximity of work to home, transportation networks, and dependents. The absence of any staff member, despite their role, level, or background, will have an impact on the functionality of a hospital. The study concludes that staff absence severely impedes the continuity of healthcare service, impacting services that provide ventilators and other essential services required during extreme events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and extreme weather events.