Safety Assessment of the Largest Makeshift Hospital for COVID-19 Management in Iran

COVID-19 has infected more than 196717202 people and killed more than 4203769 cases worldwide ever since its emergence until July 29th, 2021. The creation of centers for prehospitalization and post-hospitalization of patients as makeshift hospitals were principal actions for Covid-19 management. The study aimed to assess the safety of the largest makeshift Hospital for COVID-19 management in Iran. This cross-sectional study was conducted in Iran, from March 29, 2020, through May 20, 2020. Ever since the outbreak of COVID-19, the IRAN MALL complex dedicated a part of its exhibition space to the Medical Center in the COVID-19 disaster to help the national campaign. The research team designed a makeshift hospital risk assessment tool based on COVID-19 and visited the big makeshift hospital in Iran to evaluate its non-structural and functional situation. Also, dimensions of setting up a convalescent home and the importance of structural or non-structural items were investigated. The non-structural safety, functional and managerial safety points were calculated separately. The total safety rating was determined at 870 as a very high safety level. In this makeshift hospital, there were 16 items with ultra-low, nine items with low, 18 with moderate, 28 with high, and 134 with very high safety. Most of the low to ultra-low safety issues were related to non-structural items. The non-structural and functional safety is an essential factor to be resilient in disasters and pandemics.  Strengthening health infrastructure, empowering health care providers, using new technologies in early warning, assessing the phenomenon, and providing services, will reduce the workload and financial burden of health effects and lead to health system adaptation.