​In April this year, after the Magen David Adom (MDA) delegation arrived in the Philippines and trained Philippine Red Cross (PRC) personnel how to improve the ambulances' system and handling disasters following typhoon "Haiyan", PRC approached MDA and asked for its help in building their capabilities in the field with the pre-hospital emergency medicine.

In the two priority areas that have been identified as important areas to the Philippine Red Cross, MDA has experience and expertise in training an emergency medical technician (as per MDA training program) and preparing for them for mass casualty incident response. Within the frame of the activity supported by the Joint Distribution Committee, EMTs and instructors have been trained, during mid-December, in the new format.

A workshop was also carried out in which a draft for mass casualty incident response was written. Further work processes followed the workshop were reflected and concluded in multi-casualty drill held at the parade ground in the Philippines capital Manila.

The drill demonstrated an event of an accident between a local bus, a truck and a car. 70 mock injured participated in the drill with 150 personnel, 13 ambulances from 9 different stations and firefighting vehicles. In addition, the drill which simulated a real situation of a mass casualty event, included volunteers from the community and volunteers from the Philippines motorcycles club that served as first responders on the scene.

The drill that was complicated and one of a kind in the Red Cross, and included cooperation between employees and volunteers of different branches, this is the first time they handled the incident according to the new protocol, as well as various units of the Philippine Red Cross headquarters that participated in the writing of the new protocols and their implementation.

Chairman of the Philippine Red Cross, Senator Richard Gordon, expressed his gratitude to MDA for the assistance, noting that the standard that was placed in the drill is the one that obliged the Red Cross in its commitment to respond to the population during the event, and obligated to carry it out across the country.