US hospitals are not prepared to deal with a big event, such as a disaster or a terrorist attack, according to findings released Monday from a House oversight committee. The survey included seven major cities and the hospitals were inspected on Tuesday, March 25 at 4:30 p.m., local time.   

The 34 hospitals surveyed in New York City, Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver, Houston and Minneapolis had no available space in the emergency rooms, one emergency room was operating at over 200 percent of capacity, hospitals had few available beds in the intensive care units; in Los Angeles, three Level I trauma centers were so overcrowded that they closed their door to the patients, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said.

“If a terrorist attack had occurred in Washington, D.C. or Los Angeles on March 25 when we did our survey, the consequences could have been catastrophic. The emergency care systems were stretched to the breaking point and had no capacity to respond to a surge of victims,” Waxman said.  

The report was also used to illustrate why Waxman opposes President George W. Bush’s proposed cuts to the federal Medicaid program. US President has proposed $18.2 billion in cuts to Medicaid over five years.

The report compared the situation with what happened after the Madrid attack, when 966 victims were transported to 15 hospitals and a single hospital had to handle over 250 victims. To conclude, Waxman said hospitals are not prepared for the most probable form of attack, a suicide bomber, as Bruce Hoffman of Georgetown University said. Waxman called the results of the report “truly alarming.”