Quantitative Assessment of Surge Capacity in Rwandan Trauma Hospitals: A Survey Using the 4S Framework

Surge capacity is the ability to manage sudden patient influxes beyond routine levels and can be evaluated using the 4S Framework: staff, stuff, system, and space. While low-resource settings like Rwanda face frequent mass casualty incidents (MCIs), most surge capacity research comes from high-resource settings and lacks generalisability. This study assessed Rwanda’s hospital surge capacity using a cross-sectional survey of emergency and surgical departments in all referral hospitals. Descriptive statistics, t-tests, Fisher’s exact test, ANOVA, and linear mixed-model regression were used to analyze responses. Of the 39 invited participants, 32 (82%) responded. On average, respondents believed that they could manage 13 MCI patients (95% CI: 10–16) while maintaining routine care, with significant differences between tertiary and secondary hospitals (11 vs. 22; p = 0.016). The intra-class correlation was poor for most variables except for CT availability and ICU beds. Surge capacity perception did not vary significantly by professional category, though less senior staff reported higher capacity. Significantly higher capacity was reported by those with continuous access to imaging (p < 0.01). Despite limited resources, Rwandan hospitals appear able to manage small to moderate MCIs. For larger incidents, patient distribution across facilities is recommended, with critical cases prioritized for tertiary hospitals.