RESIK – Resilienz und Evakuierungsplanung für sozioökonomische Infrastrukturen im medio-sozialen Kontext

The current COVID-19 pandemic is bringing attention to hospitals in context of security within public discourse. The disruption of functioning hospital operation when confronted with unexpected and irregular conditions poses a constant threat to modern societies. Questions concerning the adequate distribution of medical supply capacities aswell as public security and justice are central to the debate. In this light the implication of the COVID-19 pandemic signify the importance of sustaining health infrastructure for civil protection. Among the need for steady improvement of medical organisation under controlled circumstances there is also a need for anticipatory action for the eventuality of emergency and its complex consequences – regardless of the cause being excessive external demand or internal collapse.

RESIK is obliged to this notion of planning for that, which can’t be planned for. The project is meant to be a contribution to the building and assuring of efficient, continuously and essential functioning of hospitals in times of crisis. Being taken into account are both dynamics of crisis within hospitals and potential cases of evacuation. In this respect the joint project RESIK lays the foundations for temporary decentralisation of medical and caring structures normally condensed within the hospital. In this context the hospital is regarded as a critical infrastructure. It is a node in a network of miscellaneous public health and security organizations. For the model region Krefeld RESIK analyses the complex structure, identifies existing vulnerabilities related to crisis and develops strategies to enhance the resilience of hospitals as central parts of public health infrastructure.

Within the joint project the task of the IZEW is the facilitation of ethically acceptable and socially accepted evacuation planning. For this matter various side consequences of evacuation strategies intended or not are being researched. As part of critical reflection on the project ethically sensible and relevant aspects are being carved out and their implications applied to the research. In this regard the IZEW concerns itself especially with the ethical evaluation of securitization of health infrastructure. Ensuring the ethical tenability of evacuation strategies is unanimously considered crucial to their successful implementation.