9 March 2011 – The Emergency and Humanitarian Action (EHA) unit of the WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific (WPRO), in partnership with the University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU), conducted the midterm review of the second phase of the Hospitals Safe from Disasters (HSFD) campaign on 2-4 March 2011 in Manila.

The second phase of the project aims to expand mapping and assessment of different levels of hospitals in small and medium sized cities, integrate HSFD concepts in national development plans and policies, and support further development and adaptation of tools and resources. This will mainstream disaster risk reduction in the health sector within the framework of the global campaign for safer cities in 2010-2011.

More information on WPRO Safe hospitals project 

HSFD Project documents

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Will health services function when most needed? Experiences from recent earthquakes

19 May 2010, Geneva, Switzerland

Health Ministers from WHO's 11 Member States in South-East Asia have committed themselves to making health facilities more resilient by adopting the Kathmandu Declaration on Protecting Health Facilities from Disasters. This declaration was adopted at the conclusion of the Twenty-seventh Health Minister’s Meeting in Kathmandu in September 2009.

Read the declaration

WHO has partnered with the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (US CDC) in on the development of an extensive bibliography on Safe Health Facilities. The database of more than 500 citations from many sources and in multiple languages has been refined from over 6000 original citations . The citations have been grouped in the following categories:

• assessments
• case studies and lessons
• exercises and training
• facility design and construction
• general preparedness
• integration and coordination
• plans and planning
• recovery
• security
• supply management and essential services
• surge capacity   
• tools and guidelines

CRID (Panama), US National Library of Medicine (NLM) and PAHO have provided guidance on the project. The bibliography complements CRID's collection of about 50 full-text articles on Safe Hospitals. A search engine will be provided to enable searching of the bibliographic database.

APRIL 2009 | GENEVA/BEIJING -- WHO is today celebrating World Health Day by focusing attention on the large numbers of lives that can be saved during earthquakes, floods, conflicts and other emergencies through better design and construction of health facilities and by preparing and training health staff.

WHO is recommending six core actions that governments, public health authorities and hospital managers can undertake to make their health facilities safe during emergencies. These include training health workers, designing and building safe hospitals, retrofitting existing health facilities to make them more resilient and ensuring staff and supplies are secure.

“With our world threatened by the harmful effects of climate change, more frequent extreme weather events and armed conflicts, it is crucial that we all do more to ensure that health care is available at all times to our citizens, before, during, or after a disaster,” said WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan.