Mass Casualties and Triage

Mass Casualty situations have historically been regarded as the lot of military medical personnel during conventional war. With the rise in the incidence of international terrorism and catastrophic natural disasters, Mass Casualty management is now the lot of civilian health care professional and will be for the foreseeable future. Appropriate systems and methods are required and are out there in the public domain. All working in health care have an obligation to be informed. Mass Casualty Triage in the military and civilian environments is fundamentally different. When faced with overwhelming casualties, the P or priority system will fail resulting in unnecessary morbidity and mortality. This is why the change from conventional Triage to Mass Casualty Triage has been recommended in the light of recent threats of international terrorist attacks. In general, all civilian Triage systems maintain an optimistic outlook in the face of Mass Casualties. In our modern cities, it is hard to visualise a total overwhelming of resources. Therefore, training is the foremost option to be prepared.