Natural Disasters-Public Health Threats

Natural Disasters-Public Health Threats

Access to treatment is usually a significant challenge whenever disasters strike. For instance, the health resources in the US were overwhelmed when COVID-19 struck. This made several people unable to access the treatment they required for the management of their conditions. To solve this issue, the United States government decided that some of the patients would be managed from nursing homes (Barnett et al., 2019). Therefore, healthcare workers were to care for patients suspected or confirmed to have COVID-19 from nursing homes. Although this could help in capacity building, it would be better if the government could have concentrated more on acquiring testing kits. This would have made several people do regular tests and seek treatment whenever they tested positive.

Given the effects that Hurricane Matthew was expected to cause, the residents of Florida needed to prepare for it. As part of the preparations, several residents were evacuated from the high-risk areas. Businesses and schools in different parts of Florida were also closed. It would be very difficult for learning to continue, given Hurricane Matthew threatened hurricane-force winds, beach erosion, and strong rip currents (Touzinsky et al., 2018). Besides, different guard units were activated to help in the evacuation. The guard units activated include aviation, general purpose, engineers, transportation, and military police.

Even though it is difficult to prepare for a disaster such as the explosion at the Port of Beruit, it is always necessary for a community to prepare for such events. One way of preparing for an explosion is by having an emergency response team ready. The emergency response team should be equipped with all the necessary equipment that could help save people in case such an event occurs. A community can also prepare for an explosion by creating an emergency escape plan. People should practice this plan for them to know how to react in case of an explosion.Nurses can play a critical role in preparing individuals for natural disasters. They can do this by educating them on how to react in a natural disaster. This can be done through various drills. They also need to have an emergency plan for them to beware of how to help the victims of a natural disaster.

Everyone needs to be prepared for any disaster. Although my community is not fully prepared for any disaster that can take place in the future, it has an emergency response team that is well-trained to handle the victims of a disaster. My organization is also prepared since it has an emergency plan that can be used during a disaster. It has also been organizing several drills for its employees. At a personal level, I am not fully prepared for a disaster. I need to buy equipment that could help me in case I am a victim one day. For instance, buying a life jacket could help in case floods occur.

References

Barnett, M. L., Mehrotra, A., & Grabowski, D. C. (2019). Postacute Care — The Piggy Bank for Savings in Alternative Payment Models? New England Journal of Medicine, 381(4), 302–303. https://doi.org/10.1056/nejmp1901896

Touzinsky, K. F., Scully, B. M., Mitchell, K. N., & Kress, M. M. (2018). Using Empirical Data to Quantify Port Resilience: Hurricane Matthew and the Southeastern Seaboard. Journal of Waterway, Port, Coastal, and Ocean Engineering, 144(4), 05018003. https://doi.org/10.1061/(asce)ww.1943-5460.0000446a:link {text-decoration: none;}a:visited {text-decoration: none;
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Natural Disasters-Public Health Threats

Over the past several years, we have witnessed major natural disasters such as winter storms and floods in the Northeast United States, Hurricane devastations in Houston, the Caribbean and most notably, Puerto Rico. In the not-so-distant past, the earthquake and resulting tsunami caused major devastation in Japan. Florida saw major storm landfalls in 2016 and 2017 as well. And what remained after the fires in California seemed to slide off the map when the rains came. Mudslides wiped out seemingly untouchably wealthy areas of that state. Remember the Oroville Dam? Will it fail after being repaired and readied for another rain onslaught? The last time it was in the news, politicians were still bickering over how to pay for it. Needless to mention, our recent experience with the coronavirus pandemic exposed some very interesting characteristics of cultures, governments and people in general.

Natural Disasters-Public Health Threats

For this discussion, provide one actual or potential public health threat that you have noted from the various media reports about these and other events. Include what was actually done to address the issue you have noted and add something more that you believe could/should have been done about it.

What parallels have you noted in your community? If you lived in the East Central portion of Florida in 2004 or in Miami-Dade County after Hurricane Andrew in 1992, you might be able to recognise what preparations have (and have not) been taken to prepare for major disasters. What preparations did you witness for Hurricane Matthew in October 2016 or the sister storms of 2017? Even though several places did get hit, the east coast of Florida narrowly missed major devastation with these events. And finally, could a community even prepare for a disaster such as what happened with the explosion at the Port of Beirut?

As you ponder moving to Tennessee, consider the following questions for your postings and replies.

How could nursing affect changes to an at-risk populace to be better prepared?

Is your community prepared?

Is your organization prepared?

Are you personally prepared?