Health facilities

Health Facilities are are Public services and facilities designed to provide medical care to the public.

Description

Health infrastructure can occur in varying sizes and levels of intensity, often dependent upon the primary focus of the infrastructure. They can range in size from small health centres, designed to serve a small community or residential areas up to large acute hospitals which cover large urban areas.

Functions

Social

The key social functions of health infrastructure is in the provision of health care to those who require it.

Economic

The economic function of health infrastructure is to ensure the health of the population and workforce. Moreover, health infrastructure creates direct employment (economic impact) to health care professionals of all levels of education. As a secondary economic impact, health infrastructure creates jobs and income by purchasing goods and services from other supplying businesses and organisations.

The impact of security threats is primarily crime related (e.g. burglary, theft of medicine, violence and aggression against patients and employees). Crime generates costs in anticipation of crime (e.g. locks, surveillance, etc.), as a consequence of crime (loss of property), and in response to crime (police investigation, legal system, etc.). Also security measures impose economic impact.

Mobility

The mobility associated with the different health infrastructure facilities will vary significantly depending on the type of facility, its location, the availability of public transportation modes and the patient population.

Safety

Health facilities contribute directly to the safety, welfare and well-being of people. Disruption of these services can result in unsafe situations, as people in emergency situations would not receive required help.

In general, safety functions associated with health facilities include the usual functions such as:

• shelter from the environment (weather)
• prevention and repression of incidents (fires, floods, air quality, etcetera)
• constructional safety (including the dynamic stresses that large crowds can exert)
• facilities to assure a timely retreat to a safe environment for the people present in case of incidents (Evacuation Management).

Security Issues

• BurglaryThe risk of theft is always present, especially of medicines which may hold black market value, and this risk is ever present in all types and sizes of health infrastructure, especially in urban areas.
• Physical assault Hospitals and other in-patient treatment facilities also have inherent risks associated with weak, recuperating or elderly patients that may be vulnerable to attacks, from visitors, other patients or even staff.
• Mass killing and the associated destruction of property by fanatics can be another security consideration relevant in areas with strong (ethnic) conflicts, as large volumes of people can be converging on a hospital seeking medical attention or in search of injured relatives, which not only leads to safety risks such as people getting opporesed in the crows, but also provides another attractive target for mass killing.

Measures

Policing, alarm systems, private security...