Disaster preparedness by Healthcare workers

Disaster preparedness by Healthcare workers

A disaster is an event that suddenly comes and results in much destruction. When a disaster occurs, the events go so fast that demand usually exceeds resources. Disaster may be human-made or may occur naturally. Tornadoes, tsunamis, floods, and earthquakes are examples of natural disasters. In modern society, the development of technology has made it possible to predict the disaster’s timing and scope to some extent. However, it is necessary as a nurse to be prepared to respond to any disaster situation because you do not know when and what kind of disaster you will face. Nurses play an essential role in preventing and preparing for disasters and can use the nursing process to formulate disaster plans. As the single largest profession within the health care network, nurses must understand the national disaster management cycle. Without nursing integration at every phase, communities and clients lose a critical part of the prevention network, and the multidisciplinary response team loses a first-rate partner. Nurses have unique skills for all aspects of the disaster, including assessment, priority setting, collaboration, and addressing both preventive and acute care needs(Lancaster. 2020, p507).  For example, in the event of an earthquake, nurses diagnose various health risks that may arise from an earthquake. They also help diagnose various diseases, establish treatment plans, and set up camps around disaster areas to provide first aid. Nurses plan the transfer by classifying patients according to the severity of injury or illness. Also, counseling services and community resources can be provided for those who lost their families and homes due to the earthquake. During the evaluation, feedback is received on the nursing services provided and corrected.  Also, safety education on earthquake countermeasures should be conducted from time to time. Disaster preparedness by Healthcare workers

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Me: Community flooding is a severe disastrous scenario that can lead to serious injuries and fatalities to populations swept away or trapped by high waters. Moreover, flooding disrupts transportation, utility services, pollutes drinking water supply, and serious housing damages. To minimize the impact of flooding disasters in the community, necessary steps of disaster preparedness need to be taken, especially by the community and public health nurses in collaboration with other stakeholders.

The steps required by disaster managers, including community nurses, to guide emergency planning are: knowing the potential risks is critical and involves ranking the emergencies likelihood as per their importance to establish, which is more likely to occur in an area, it helps in planning for the necessary resources to deal with specific disaster (Davis, Weber, Schulenberg, & Green, 2019).  After identifying floods as the most likely disaster in a community, community nurses may plan for interventions and treatments related to diseases caused by dirty water, coldness, and other injuries. Building a team after identifying possible disaster helps put together experts in the floods field, like divers, emergency nurses, and security agencies, to team up together and effectively deal with the situation. Disaster preparedness by Healthcare workers

It is important to make critical information easily accessing, by having an emergency plan precise to the risk, threat, and what needs to be done. Important information should be accessible to every team member to understand and combine the required resources to respond effectively to the disaster. This helps nurses to know what is required from them in the event of a disaster. Response and alert procedures should be updated; the public nurses should educate the community about the primary response strategies and advice on various platforms for reporting flooding instances for immediate response and helping the team identify the most affected areas. Lastly, the emergency plan should be evaluated and tested to establish its effectiveness. Disaster preparedness by Healthcare workers

Professor question: You share good information on your area risks and the role of the PHN, but what about internal disasters?  I think we often think of the flood or the earthquake. When power goes out in a facility or city it can impact the care and the emergency protocol must be put into place. We had that happen in San Diego about 8 years ago and it was city wide which impacted those on oxygen in the home as their concentrators were not operational and tanks were getting ready to run out. We had to put in emergency measures to start getting oxygen out to people which started to be an issue as gas was impossible to get at the pumps, traffic started building, but fortunately the power came back on earlier than they thought they could get it up before it became a catastrophic emergency to those most vulnerable Disaster preparedness by Healthcare workers

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