In disasters, the success of medical action in the hospital will only be measured according to the number of survivors and not to the number of major operations executed. Thus, for the clinician his usual standards may have to be modified and he must keep in mind the principle of helping the largest possible number of patients in the given circumstances.

According to previous experience it can be expected that 20% of the survivors in a disaster need surgical treatment. Even in well organized and fully equipped surgical clinics, the proportion of immediate treatment capacity to the total number of beds is no more than 5% to 8% under normal conditions. This means that every hospital should make plans to organize facilities to cope with a major disaster. The individual hospital plans should be co-ordinated with other hospitals in the neighborhood and be integrated into the disaster plans for the entire area. Communication between hospital and the central headquarters is of the utmost importance.