Tasmania: medical response to mass casualty situations.

The medical response arrangements in place in Tasmania recognise the limited resource base within which any incident would need to be managed. This resource framework, both in institutional and prehospital terms, requires that Tasmania makes use of structures which diverge from the general approach adopted by many of the mainland states. The approach to mass casualty situation management used in Tasmania is based on a doctrine which includes: As far as possible, the organisational structures used in mass casualty response should mirror those used in normal operations; Integration of communications systems should be inherent in normal operational practice and therefore, able to be applied to mass casualty situations without significant change; and site organisation and command should be based on normal operational arrangements maximising the experience base of those co-ordinating the response. This doctrine allows Tasmania to provide a standing response capacity which is greater than it would otherwise be able to accomodate within the State's financial, physical and human resource base