Pattern of Hospital Assistance Needs

Each hospital experienced the civil disturbance in a different way. In some cases, the violent acts and looting were taking place all around the hospital. In others it was taking place a few blocks away. As already shown, some hospitals received a large number of patients on Wednesday, others experienced their greatest load on Thursday. This pattern is supported by the Southern California Hospital Council report (SCHA, 1992). The pattern of injuries also varied from hospital to hospital depending on what day the largest number arrived. In some cases food and medical equipment suppliers were willing to make deliveries, in other cases they weren't. The Southern California Hospital Council in their debriefing of twenty-six hospitals found that It many of these hospitals ran out of supplies" (SCHC, 1992). All of these factors and others created special and unique demands on hospital administrators. Table 23 reports the approximate day when problems began to emerge at three case study hospitals. By the hospitals "problems began to emerge" we mean that these issues had to be thought about an planned for. While each hospital experienced some problems, hospital care was not compromised. The data shows that each hospital experienced different problems at different times. (The Kaiser Permanente Regional Operations Center provided food to their Gardena Data Center Thursday night.)

Medical Care for the Injured

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