In Iraq, IGC is engaging 20 emergency medicine physicians; chemical, biological, radiological (CBR) focal points; and law enforcement from the Kurdistan Ministry of Health (IKR MOH), Shar Hospital, and the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs (MoPA) in the Kurdistan Region in a hospital assessment. This project has a series of engagements focused on hospital CBR preparedness to further develop the region’s capacity to respond to CBR events. The project involves:
- The development and implementation of a tailored questionnaire to assess the CBR incident response capabilities in-person at Shar Hospital in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq;
- A three-day, in-person engagement at Shar Hospital Sulaymaniyah, Iraq to review the assessment results and train relevant staff on gaps identified;
- 35 hours of remote follow-up sessions on CBR security, standard operating procedure(SOP) development, and cross-sector and/or departmental communication protocols.
In Lebanon, IGC, in collaboration with Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) is organizing a team to design and develop a CBRN preparedness assessment tool that can be implemented to assess Lebanese hospitals’ preparedness with respect to CBRN threats. IGC is engaging in-country stakeholders to identify and assess current emergency and hospital CBRN preparedness tools, identifying common elements. The in-country will participate in a series of Delphi-based sessions to reach a consensus on the critical and necessary components of the new tool. After finalizing the tool, the team will assess and collect data from Lebanese hospitals, with greater than 100 hospital beds, via interview meetings and on-site visits to participating hospitals. A final report on the tool and data analysis from the hospital assessments will be developed and delivered to Sandia.