A disaster can be termed as a sudden and injurious occurrence that serious interrupts the normal day to day functioning of a given society or community and has the effects of causing harm to human beings and economic losses that a community is not in a position to cope using its own resources (McNutt & Leshner, 2013). Therefore, hospitals and other concern organizations must come up with ways on how to prepare for these disasters and to reduce their effects to the community. They do this by predicting their occurrence and mitigating their effects especially to the vulnerable places (Prior & Roth, 2013). I interviewed Mr. John who is a disaster preparedness manager at Mt. Sinai hospital to find out the kind of disasters they anticipate for and how they manage them as well as the lessons learnt from his experience in handling disasters in the hospital.
According to him, road accidents are another disaster that the hospital has put aside resources to mitigate its effects since they are disasters that can happen on daily basis. He gave me an example of car highway crash where they have to treat almost everyday victims from such accidents (Prior & Roth, 2013). Additionally, the hospital also anticipates disasters resulting from disease outbreaks. These are disasters that can occur anywhere and if they are not well prepared for, they can claim lives of many people just like the terror bombing. Outbreaks such cholera, yellow fever, and Ebola are dangerous if they occur and, therefore, mechanism have to be put in place to deal with them once they occur.
I also went ahead to ask him on the top three lesson he has learnt in all the years he has been leading the efforts of preparing for disasters. The first lesson he has learnt from the process is the importance of having a good communication system in dealing with the effects of disasters. Communication between the parties involved in the process is essential (McNutt & Leshner, 2013). This will ensure that patients would be directed to the right places from where they can get assistance. Consequently, this will also help in ensuring that the hospital would not be overwhelmed by the number of patients and that the necessary resources required by the community are put in place (Prior & Roth, 2013). He also told me that, most of the hospitals in the country are currently faced with this communication problem and he gave me an example of how various hospitals do not have provisions in the response plans on how to deal with bioterrorism especially on ways of contacting outside parties such as the fire departments as well as other hospitals. During these occurrences, all the concern departments must work together as a team but for this to happen, a good communication system must be put in place.
Consequently, he explained to me how he has learnt the important of hospitals having the adequate facilities and other resources needed in preparing for disasters (Prior & Roth, 2013). According to him, hospitals should have nursing homes, counseling clinics, ambulatory care clinics, enough health caregivers, and the ability to maintain excess capacity. He said that having all the resources required, will make the work of planning and coordinating easier (Miller & Birnbaum, 2013) .Hospitals in such occurrences operate near full capacity but if hospitals have enough beds, isolations rooms, ventilators, and pharmaceuticals, mitigating the effects becomes possible.
Another important aspect that the disaster preparedness expert learnt in disaster preparedness is the importance of training and educating the health care professionals and local communities on how to prepare for disasters and how to react to them in case they happen (McNutt & Leshner, 2013). He has noted with great concern that most people get injured during disasters for lack of knowledge on how to handle them. He gave me an example of how the public can be trained on how to identify terror suspects and the procedures of reporting them to right authorities (Prior & Roth, 2013). Hospitals should also be filled with staffs that have been trained on how to handle victims of disasters.
Conclusively, disasters are calamities that cause a lot of harm to human beings. Some of these harms include deaths, injuries, and loss of properties. Terror attacks, diseases outbreaks and roads have claimed the lives of many people and, therefore, hospitals and other concern agencies have to put aside resources to prepare and mitigate the effects of these disasters.
References
McNutt, M., & Leshner, A. (2013). Preparing for disasters. Science, 341(6146), 592-592.
Miller, A., & Birnbaum, L. (2015). Preparing for disasters. Science, 348, 766-767.
Prior, T., & Roth, F. (2013). Preparing for Disasters in Global Cities: An International Comparison. Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zurich.
