NATURAL DISASTER RESPONSE
By Edwin Amuga
Introduction
World disasters are happening more intensely and frequently, demonstrating a critical need for the enhancement of risk management and response. High-profile disasters are increasing worldwide consciousness to strengthen national and regional capacity to mitigate, respond to and manage these disasters. Developing countries such as the Caribbean islands, the middle east, and Africa are particularly vulnerable to natural disasters for reasons of lack of infrastructure, resources and exacerbated by geology, tectonic setting, topography and location, poor environmental management practices, and land use among other reasons related to the country and respective natural or man-made disasters that frequent it (Veeneema, 2018).
Earthquakes, hurricanes, and wildfires are some of the most common natural disasters that have even affected developed nations such as the United States crippling small and large communities, killing thousands, and destroying any infrastructure around where they occur. The disasters being experienced today worldwide are some of the most devastating and strongest in the last 100 years of human history and have been argued to be just mere precedents for the worst that is yet to come in the near future in the face of climate change and global warming as well as other destructive human activities.
Local, state, and national response
The use of technology has been employed in response to these disasters enabling rescue operations and recovery allowing cities to rebuild after each event in the wake of these disastrous happenings and empowering the rescuers to help save more lives and others to intervene. Under normal circumstances worldwide, disaster repose in high-income countries trickle down in a pyramid-like series of organizations allowing responder mobilization from all government levels and coordinates with non-governmental, public, and private organizations meaning that the jurisdictional levels are lowest and closest to the disasters are the ones that handle to events. The volunteers and responder agencies handle the situation and its aftermath in most countries. The local firefighters, police, medical personnel, and rescuers are the first to get to the affected area to give the necessary aid in the disaster’s immediate aftermath. The local government is asked to step in if there is an insufficiency of resources needed to meet the required needs. A government that is unable to meet the required needs has an option to request assistance from other nearby states and even the national government if the needs are much more than expected. The federal government assesses the needs and declares it a national disaster if the runs run higher allowing other governmental groups to pull in their efforts.
Barriers to healthcare access during natural disasters
Some of the problems facing disaster management and response are bureaucracy in government that is characterized by lumbering is responding to events. Another is the socio-economic inequalities among states since the state and local governments are the first responders to disasters in their areas of jurisdiction. These continue to dog disaster management and response and are even worse when disasters strike developing countries around the world, leading to further loss of life and destruction of property and infrastructure.
West Africa is the most disadvantaged region in the world as it witnesses a severe Ebola hemorrhagic fever that caught international organizations unprepared making it the 25th known outbreak since 1976, the most complex and with maximum casualties and spread to three bordering countries of Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone. The outbreak affected over 28, 000 people and claimed over 11,000 lives. This together with poor health infrastructure rendered the authorities clueless and unable to control the outbreak. The region, like many other parts of Africa, has 1.3 health workers per 1,000 population, which is why even less than the 4.5 required towards the achievement of sustainable development goals. By the year 2030, the African continent is expected to house the majority 6.1 million of the global health workers shortage of 14.5 million. The health burden, as well as the resource crisis of the continent, is one of the highest in the world. Children under the age of five years record the highest mortality rate in Africa at 95 per 1,000 and its maternal mortality rate the highest at 500 per one lakh live births. The continent houses 11 percent of the global population and ironically faces 60 percent of the HIV/AIDS burden apart from having more than 90 percent of the annual 400 million world malaria cases.
The need for nursing mobilization
The case of the United States 2017 hurricane season remains as a wake-up call for health care organizations and health workers worldwide as the costliest and deadliest hurricanes caused devastation in many places in the Caribbean, Texas and Florida keys and rendered roads impassable, grid demolished, and over a million people homeless and lacking access to drinking water and food (Alim, Kawabata & Nakazawa, 2015). Just like in many developing nations, people were unable to access medical care since hospitals were closed or without power, mirroring the everyday situation in developing countries of lack of resources, infrastructure, and trained nurses. Nurses need to be mobilized in case of disasters to provide disaster relief and save lives. Many nurses took time off and privately funded their trips to volunteer in the aid effort to people with few resources, children, and the elderly suffering from hunger and dehydration. This action together with advocacy from the nurses helped increase the number of nursing aid as from the nursing perspective, the lack of resources, food, and proper medical attention caused preventable illnesses, complicated chronic conditions, and caused death at a higher scale than experienced during the storm.
Role of nurses during natural disasters
Nurses have been playing critical roles in disaster response as they cared for thousands of people in many disaster relief efforts such as in the south Asian tsunami of 2004, the hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 20015, the massive earthquake in Haiti, and Typhoon Haiyan among many other all over history. Volunteer nurses that have been taking part check with disaster management organizations such as the Red Cross for volunteer opportunities. Nursing volunteerism is turning out to be among the most potent tools of patient advocacy as it goes beyond advocating for patient needs under their personal care. Nurses have a responsibility to advocate for patients' needs, and it is also within their ethical obligations to approach broader advocacy issues as a union of nursing professionals (Achora & Kamanyire, 2016).
Natural disasters are one of the most unpredictable and dangerous things that face counties regardless of their economic or political standing as they wreak havoc on populations that takes long tmes to recovery. Each natural disaster happening anywhere around the world is unique but calls for volunteers with a range of professional backgrounds to emotionally and physically help rebuild the communities that have been affected. Nurses have a range of professional skillsets and backgrounds they can offer when volunteering abroad in areas affected by natural disasters.
Race, gender and class in disaster response
The social effects and government response during Hurricane Katrina were connected to race and class as most of those left behind during evacuation were poor black Americans not able to afford homes in safer flood-protected areas. Marginalized races or ethnic groups face barriers arising from cultural, language, experience, discrimination, segregation, and social isolation in disaster aftermaths. The poverty and ethnic/ racial intersection combine to the disadvantage of women. Women in subordinated ethnic and racial groups have housing-related difficulties that come with discrimination in the relief system.
Role of international altruistic originations
Many organizations and individuals worldwide are aware of the state of developing nations’ unpreparedness and poverty concerning disaster response but unfortunately, the amount of funding directed to improve the situation during these times remains relatively small in comparison with the finding directed to many other developed countries’ priorities. The United Kingdom government uses only 0.7% of the national income in foreign aid annually, which was $12.1 Billion in the year 2015. The government, however, spends three times as much on defense, taking up 3% of the national income (Labrague et al., 2018). The individual donations to oversee aid also remains relatively small as characterized by the contributions by the United Kingdom citizens donating more to hospitals and hospices, religious charities, medical; research, children and young people charities as compared to the aid the granted to overseas assistance and disaster relief. The United States also bears the same aid behaviors as the Canada and United Kingdom. The charities and foundations in the line of reducing the aftermath of natural or human-made disasters are in definite need for more funds.
References
Achora, S., & Kamanyire, J. K. (2016). Disaster Preparedness: Need for inclusion in undergraduate nursing education. Sultan Qaboos University Medical Journal, 16(1), e15.
Alim, S., Kawabata, M., & Nakazawa, M. (2015). Evaluation of disaster preparedness training and disaster drill for nursing students. Nurse education today, 35(1), 25–31.
Labrague, L. J., Hammad, K., Gloe, D. S., McEnroe‐Petitte, D. M., Fronda, D. C., Obeidat, A. A., … & Mirafuentes, E. C. (2018). Disaster preparedness among nurses: a systematic review of literature. International nursing review, 65(1), 41–53.
Veenema, T. G. (Ed.). (2018). Disaster nursing and emergency preparedness. Springer Publishing Company.
