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Challenges to Prehospital Care in Honduras

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2018

Haley E. Bast  and
J. Lee Jenkins
Haley E. Bast*
Affiliation:
University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MarylandUSA
J. Lee Jenkins
Affiliation:
University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MarylandUSA Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MarylandUSA
*
Correspondence: Haley E. Bast, BS/EMT-P 1000 Hilltop Circle Baltimore, Maryland 21250 USA E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Through a longitudinal field experience and interviews with rural and urban clinic workers in Honduras, the following data were collated regarding the challenges to prehospital Emergency Medical Services (EMS) in this country. In Honduras, both private and public organizations provide prehospital emergency care for citizens and face both financial and resource constraints. These constraints manifest in operational concerns such as challenges of integration of EMS systems with each other, differences in medical direction oversight, and barriers to public access. Despite the availability of public health care services, authorities and locals alike do not recommend using the public systems due to lack of needed resources and time of emergency response.

Private volunteer EMS organizations are scattered throughout the country and each operates as their own separate system. There is no single dispatch center available, nor is there a guarantee that calling for EMS will result in the patient’s desired response. In this report, the challenges are discussed with possible solutions presented.

BastHE, JenkinsJL. Challenges to Prehospital Care in Honduras. Prehosp Disaster Med. 2018;33(6):637–639.

Keywords

Emergency Medical ServicesEMSHondurasprehospital
Type
Special Report
Information
Prehospital and Disaster Medicine , Volume 33 , Issue 6 , December 2018 , pp. 637 - 639
Copyright
© World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine 2018 

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Footnotes

Conflicts of interest: none

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