The epidemiology of patients treated at a private hospital as a consequence of the September 19 th 2017 earthquake in Mexico City.

INTRODUCTION: Natural disasters can happen anytime. There is no gold standard for emergency department triaging and setup during these kind of emergencies. On September 19th 2017, at 13:14:40, a 7.1 magnitude on the Richter scale earthquake hit Mexico City. Buildings, including hospitals, collapsed. Our hospital offered free medical attention to those affected by the earthquake.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: We reviewed the patient database for all patients who had been treated between September 19th and September 24th as a consequence of earthquake related injuries in both campuses. Age, gender, diagnosis, injured part, transportation method to hospital, triage color assigned in the emergency room, campus where attention was received, attention type, time spent in hospital, attention type. We calculated frequencies, medians, and standard deviation of lesions, triage code, and treatment in the emergency room.

RESULTS: After the September 19th 2017 earthquake in Mexico City, our hospital treated 184 patients, most were female, most patients were between 21 and 60 years of age, the most common diagnosis were lower extremity trauma (no fractures), lower limb fractures, psychiatric disorders, craneoencephalic trauma and other upper extremity trauma. Most patients received a green triage and were discharged from the emergency department.

CONCLUSION: Epidemiology of patients treated at our hospital is consistent with epidemiology reported in the literature for earthquake casualties. There was an adequate adaption of the emergency department for the reception and treatment of massive casualties. Patient records were mostly complete. We believe a standardized format designed specifically for these kinds of situations could be of great help in order to keep accurate patient records.