Fire Evacuation Preparedness of Hospitals in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Fire accidents are the most serious disasters that directly affect people and facilities. The importance of this research stems from the urgent necessity of studying fire of hospitals, their causes and ways of combating them, beside appropriate strategies for evacuation. This study aims to investigate the causes of fire accidents in hospitals and the effectiveness of the methods used in evacuation operations. This study also aims to identify the extent of employees' readiness for evacuation in the event of fire accidents and to see the evacuation strategies followed in hospitals. To achieve these aims, researcher follow both approaches; quantitative approach through a questionnaire and qualitative approach through semi-structured interviews safety officials of two governmental hospitals and two private hospitals. 125 questionnaires were collected from employees of the four selected hospitals, four personal interview took place in the selected hospitals. Results of semi-structural interviews showed that the fire evacuation practices are similar in both sectors. also, private hospitals are found to be more focused on staff training. On other hand descriptive statistical analysis for questionnaire showed that the Saudi hospitals are following vertical and horizontal evacuation based on the characteristics of buildings. Study recommended that the management of governmental hospital is recommended to formulate an evacuation guide by considering all critical factors of infrastructure, employee training, and safety equipment. governmental hospitals need to incorporate training programs to improve their preparedness for evacuating patients and staff during a fire. For future works study recommended that researchers should conduct a nation-wide study to analyse the disparities between the fire evacuation preparedness of the governmental and the private hospitals.