Natural Disasters and Health Care Essay

A natural disaster has the capability to cause large scale damage and destruction to an area. Seismic events have been known to alter landscapes and affect the livelihoods, health and development of communities. No two earthquake events are the same and the level of threat posed by an earthquake can vary due to both the human and physical factors of an area. The 2010 magnitude - 7.0 earthquake that occurred in Haiti is an example of where a natural disaster caused a previously vulnerable area to suffer tremendous loss and debilitating socio-economic impacts, to an already poverty-stricken nation.

Explain the importance of having an emergency plan in place to deal with unforeseen incidents

Aviii An explanation about the importance of having an emergency plan in place to deal with unforeseen circumstances.

Having these plans in place give the Disaster Recovery team the instructions they need when disaster strikes

Preparedness Efforts is preparedness activities prepare the community to respond when a disaster does occur. Typical preparedness measures include medical personnel for the emergency services and for community volunteer groups. The medical facility will need to have the proper medical vehicles, equipment, supplies, and communications systems, and regularly training

In day to day operations, uncertainties do occur. Henceforth it would be important to have a contingent and well detailed disaster preparedness plan and procedures. Healthcare systems, on a day to day basis, are faced with emergencies in form of disasters. As a result, majority of medical centers have well-structured exit plans in the event of a disaster occurring("Hospital Disaster Preparedness: Your Guide to Getting Started - Emergency Preparedness", 2011). However, this essay will aim at interviewing one of the top disaster preparedness staffat the Houston Methodist Hospital. In the interview, I will seek to identify the top three disasters that the Houston Methodist Hospital is prepared for. Similarly, in the interview, I would seek to identify the top lessons learnt from disaster preparedness at the hospitals.As it concludes it would summarize the findings with regards to the interview stated below. Below is an excerpt from the interview to answer the two aforementioned questions.

We have established a comprehensive Emergency Operations Plan to handle our resources to provide safe environment for our patients in the event of adverse conditions such as power failures, water, fuel shortages, flooding, and communication breakdowns. Our facilities are prepared, staff knows responsibilities to extend patient care under disrupted utilities and other emergency situations.

This chapter provides an overview that describes the basic types of hazards threatening the United States and provides definitions for some basic terms such as hazards, emergencies, and disasters. The chapter also provides a brief history of emergency management in the federal government and a general description of the current emergency management system—including the basic functions performed by local emergency managers. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the all-hazards approach and its implications for local emergency management.

Economic and development of any area is always and always will be interrupted by disasters big and small. These disasters can have a big impact on the economy by destroying businesses, homes, and damage property. As disaster pose a challenge to up and coming or existing developments or communities there are ways to possibly help damage and lose such as not building in a flood zone and moving to higher elevation. Disasters can have an effect on families to.

These events included major disasters and declared emergencies consisting of ice storms, hurricanes, tropical storms, floods and drought (City-data.com, n.d.). Flooding is a common problem associated with most these events and the most common injuries noted with floods could be drowning as well as injuries such as fractures from contact with debris. Common problems associated with these events would be displaced families, and power outages making children, seniors, and those individuals suffering from chronic health problems the most at risk. After this type of disaster there could be the risk of infections due to contaminated food or water, insect borne diseases, respiratory infections and infected wounds following

Emergency disaster situations can be defined in three ways accidental, natural, or wilful. An accidental disaster refers to an event which is totally unexpected such as a house fire started by an electrical fault. Similarly, an illustration of a natural disaster would be the recent earthquakes which took place in Christchurch, NZ between September 2010 and February 2011 that resulted in devastating and far reaching consequences for the country. Foremost in many minds when recollecting a wilful disaster would be the terror attacks of 9.11 in the USA. A disaster of this magnitude has never been experienced during peace time in our lifetime. This essay will examine three different aspects of rescue management procedure where reports detailing disaster and emergency response must be studied to understand and improve our handling of rescue operations.

The currently evolving H1N1 influenza and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) emphasize the concerning threat of naturally occurring contagion. The recent experience from hurricanes and extreme weather along with the attacks of September 11th 2001 have confirmed that the United States faces a true threat of mass casualty incidents. These threats have brought to light that U.S. Healthcare organizations must be prepared, resourced and organized to respond to hazard impacts. Hospital administration must ensure that their facilities are prepared to handle hazard impacts, an examination of healthcare system response has shown that when there is a disaster the initial response to any medical need will always be based upon locally available health organizations and that effective healthcare response during a disaster is complex (Emergency Management Principles and Practices for Healthcare Systems, Second Edition, 2010).

Data obtained by assessing social vulnerability must be implemented within each phase of the emergency management process; mitigation, response, and recovery. First, to effectively respond and recover from incidents emergency management agencies must concentrate on the mitigation phase to prevent incidents from happening in the first place. This is achieved through a thorough hazard/vulnerability analysis (HVA). This type of analysis assesses the risk of physical, economic, and social vulnerability within all communities of a given jurisdiction (Lindell et al., 2006, p. 165). Additionally, the basis of the HVA allows emergency managers to effectively plan for disaster by creating pre-planned responses to disasters (rather than improvised response) and staging resources to locations with the highest probability of risk; ultimately contributing to the mitigation and response phases.

Due to diverse geo-climatic conditions prevalent in different parts of the globe, different types of natural disasters like floods, droughts, earthquakes, cyclones, landslides, and volcanoes etc may strike according to the vulnerability of the area.

As the Marxist approach puts it, “underlying states of human marginalisation are conceived as the principle cause of disaster.” (Pelling, 2001, p. 179). This resource exclusion to particular categories of people within society creates their vulnerability to risk, and in turn disaster. McLaughlin and Dietz (2007) suggest there are three dimensions that make up vulnerability including exposure, sensitivity and resilience. An example displaying the vulnerability of lower classed social categories is in North Bihar, India, where floods have been managed through engineering works to create embankments. While the Government appears to be reducing the hazard, this has increased the vulnerability of the local people. Soil fertility has decreased reducing agricultural success, dangerous flash floods are occurring due to embankment walls collapsing and communities have settled on apparently safe embankments and are now highly exposed (Pelling, 2001). The natural flood hazard was dangerous, but these works by society have created a natural disaster (Pelling, 2001). Power inequalities have created this disastrous situation where lower classes are at high exposure to floods due to profit hungry management bodies. This technological approach is clearly failing but the Government and other managing groups make large profits off flood engineering works and have the power to decide how to control the issue (Pelling, 2001). This has resulted in creating