TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY OF POST-DISASTER HEALTH SERVICES INTERVENTIONS: THE 2023 KAHRAMANMARAŞ EARTHQUAKE IN TURKEY

Abstract

Purpose – In order to meet the most urgent needs of the regions affected by the biggest earthquake of the century, government, national and international actors have made enormous efforts. However, some international studies evaluating the effectiveness of previous disaster relief efforts have expressed that inefficient use of resources in the disaster relief process should be a matter of concern. The main purpose of this study is to obtain evidence to support post-earthquake healthcare interventions and to establish a reference on earthquake relief. Design/methodology/approach – The data of the study covers the period from 6 February to 16 February 2023 and was obtained from the official daily reports of the Health Disaster and Coordination Centre Unit (SAKOM) of the Ministry of Health. The data consisted of allocations of rescue units, human resources, workload and other information recorded in official daily reports. In addition, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method was used to evaluate the technical efficiency of health services provided in 10 provinces affected by the earthquake in the first emergency period of the Kahramanmaraş-centered earthquake Findings – The technical efficiency scores of the health services provided in the earthquake-affected provinces are analysed, it is seen that while the average technical efficiency was 52% (SD: 0.30) on the 5th day of the earthquake, it increased significantly to 80% (SD: 0.21) on the 10th day. This result shows that health services in earthquake zones have started to be provided more efficiently over time. The rapid normalisation of health services in earthquake zones is an important indicator for the performance of disaster management and crisis response teams. Originality/value – Despite the extensive research on earthquake response and health services individually, there's a noticeable gap in literature explicitly exploring the relationship between the two. This lacuna in research is particularly evident when it comes to examining the efficiency of health services during seismic disasters.