BEIJING (Reuters) - The World Health Organisation on Tuesday launched a campaign to get countries, especially in disaster-prone areas, to spend more money on hospital safety to ensure buildings are not damaged when needed most.
WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said the cost of constructing, or retrofitting, buildings able to withstand earthquakes, floods or strong winds was insignificant when compared with the cost of having hospitals collapse in the midst of a disaster.
"In large emergencies, such as those caused by earthquakes, or floods, some countries have lost as much as 50 percent of their hospital capacity to respond right at the time when life-saving functions and services were most acutely needed," Chan told a news conference in Beijing.
"When a new hospital is built, construction specifically designed to withstand earthquakes and extreme weather events adds about four percent to the cost," she said. "This is a very small amount when you consider the huge investment in a hospital, and the huge investment lost when a hospital collapses."
The WHO pointed to disasters such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in which around two-thirds of health facilities in Indonesia's badly hit Aceh province were damaged. Pakistan and Algeria suffered similarly during recent earthquakes.
Hospitals were also damaged during last year's massive earthquake in southwest China's Sichuan province, in which around 80,000 people died.
"Experience in Latin America and the Caribbean shows that retrofitting a structurally sound facility will cost no more than one percent of the hospital's budget," Chan said.
"Abundant experience demonstrates the tremendous pay-off ... when hospitals remain standing and functioning as beacons of security and solidarity in the midst of disaster and despair."
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Nick Macfie)