State of disaster preparedness among members of staff at Kenyatta national Hospital, Nairobi County, Kenya

Abstract

Objective: To find out the state of disaster preparedness amo ng members of staff at Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH), Nairobi, Kenya. Design: Sectional descriptive study. Setting : Kenyatta National Hospital, Nairobi, Kenya. Subjects: Three hundred sixty one respondents . Results: The study established that terrorist attack (84%) i s the leading potential threat followed by fire (81%). Most members of staff of KNH (66.7%) were aw are of the existence of a disaster plan in the hosp ital. Majority (65.3%) of the respondents felt that evacu ation plans are inadequate. The study found out th at 58% of the respondents had no training on disaster management. Majority of the respondents indicated t hat there was no adequate infrastructure to manage disa ster with 62.3 % indicating there was inadequate fi re fighting equipments. There was no difference on dis aster management knowledge among male and female (P=0.631; 570 .9 2 = χ ) respondents. In contrast, a higher proportion (12 %) with 50 years and above had excellent knowledge compared to those with between 31-40 years. The respondents’ age was associated wi th knowledge on disaster management knowledge (P<0.05) . In terms of training on disaster management, those trained had good knowledge (50.7%) as compare d to 26.8% not trained and was statistically significant (P<0.05). Similarly, years worked in KN H played a role on knowledge on disaster management . There was a larger proportion (31.3%) of those who have worked between 10-15 years when compared to 49.5% who have worked between 15-20 years. Conclusion The KNH has the responsibility to ensure that all t he members of the staff are familiar with the disas ter preparedness contents and management plan. There wa s inadequate training in disaster preparedness by the member of staff and emergency drills were not h eld to evaluate the disaster response. There is no adequate infrastructure in the hospital to handle t he emergencies as established by this study. The st udy has established that the hospital need to adequately lo ok into the up-gradation of the infrastructure to e nhance the efficiency of service delivery in times of disa ster as well as performing emergency trainings and drills