Uzbekistan hospitals are focusing on safety and resilience with help from WHO/Europe to  train national experts in applying the Hospital Safety Index, according to an article on the World Health Organization (WHO) website.

A WHO expert in preparedness and response trained 13 national experts  including civil engineers with experience in hospital construction and maintenance; engineers and technicians familiar with electricity, water, sewage and heating systems in hospitals; medical technicians who maintain diagnostic equipment; and medical doctors involved in day-to-day work in hospitals, the article said.

The experts then visited three hospitals to gather information about the hospitals' strengths and weaknesses and identify ways in which the safety, emergency and disaster management capacities of the hospitals could be improved. 

The Safe Hospital Initiative is a priority among the five messages of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, which was agreed by 186 countries in March 2015.

Read the article.