Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Response

Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Response

Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Response is an essential part of nursing education and practice. Nurses in all parts of the world are provided with the education which helps them in the development of competencies and skills required to respond to specific situations such as that of emergency and disasters where they are required to use clinical judgment and decision making skills. The purpose of this paper is to outline the role of a professional nurse, the manner in which nurse works in collaboration with other health care professionals, identify strategies for improvement in the response plan devised by the nurse in the wake of a hurricane that has recently struck.

The Role of the Nurse

A disaster is any natural or man-made incident that causes serious disruption of life and can result in death and injury to a larger number of people. Such destructive and devastating situations require efforts from various professionals and organizations for effective management and to respond to the disaster. The role of nurse in times of a disaster or emergency situation is a central and vital one. A hurricane is also a natural disaster that brings various different emergencies into play that combine to bring large scale devastation and destruction to the region it strikes.

A hurricane can cause flooding and high winds resulting in damaged buildings and infrastructure which might bring injury or death. As soon as the wind stops blowing, health related risks associated with hurricane arise. These include deaths due to drowning, injury, and electrocution etc. in the subsequent days of the end of the storm while other post-hurricane deaths and illness are also reported frequently. There is a tendency of the thriving of bacteria and viruses in the aftermath of the hurricane. Flood-tainted food and water supplies, overburdened sewage system and more importantly an increase in the population of mosquitos are significant contributing factors in the spread of the various illnesses. Diseases usually seen after hurricanes include Encephalitis (occurring from a mosquito bite that carries the virus), gastrointestinal illnesses (stomach illness), Hepatitis A (due to flooding of sewage treatment facilities and septic tanks) and tetanus (DHEC).

Recovering from a hurricane is difficult for everyone involved and there are numerous health and safety issues that arise as a result. These situations are challenging for the health care professionals and especially nurses have to play an active role in handling such an emergency situation in a community affected by it and it requires a lot of critical thinking and decision making from their end.

Disaster is an emergency situation and therefore requires coordination of various departments and personnel for efficient management of it and hurricanes are no different. A nurse has to in the wake of a disaster, first of all with the help of other colleagues take out extra mattresses and blankets out of the disaster room so that enough space is available for accommodating more patients who may come up. Furthermore, a nurse can play a vital ...