What is disaster management?
The United Nations
defines a disaster as a serious disruption of the functioning
of a community or a society. Disasters involve widespread human, material,
economic or environmental impacts, which exceed the ability of the affected
community or society to cope using its own resources.
The Red Cross and
Red Crescent societies define disaster management as the
organisation and management of resources and responsibilities for dealing with
all humanitarian aspects of emergencies, in particular preparedness, response
and recovery in order to lessen the impact of disasters.
Types of disasters
There is no
country that is immune from disaster, though vulnerability to disaster varies.
There are four main types of disaster.
·
Natural disasters: including
floods, hurricanes, earthquakes and volcano eruptions that have immediate
impacts on human health and secondary impacts causing further death and
suffering from (for example) floods, landslides, fires, tsunamis.
·
Environmental emergencies:
including technological or industrial accidents, usually involving the
production, use or transportation of hazardous material, and occur where these
materials are produced, used or transported, and forest fires caused by humans.
·
Complex emergencies:
involving a break-down of authority, looting and attacks on strategic
installations, including conflict situations and war.
·
Pandemic emergencies:
involving a sudden onset of contagious disease that affects health, disrupts
services and businesses, brings economic and social costs.
Any disaster
can interrupt essential services, such as health care, electricity, water,
sewage/garbage removal, transportation and communications. The interruption can
seriously affect the health, social and economic networks of local communities
and countries. Disasters have a major and long-lasting impact on people long
after the immediate effect has been mitigated. Poorly planned relief activities
can have a significant negative impact not only on the disaster victims but
also on donors and relief agencies. So it is important that physical therapists
join established programmes rather than attempting individual efforts.
Local,
regional, national and international organisations are all involved in mounting
a humanitarian response to disasters. Each will have a prepared disaster
management plan. These plans cover prevention, preparedness, relief and
recovery.
Disaster prevention
These are
activities designed to provide permanent protection from disasters. Not all
disasters, particularly natural disasters, can be prevented, but the risk of
loss of life and injury can be mitigated with good evacuation plans,
environmental planning and design standards. In January 2005, 168 Governments
adopted a 10-year global plan for natural disaster risk reduction called the Hyogo Framework. It offers guiding principles, priorities
for action, and practical means for achieving disaster resilience for
vulnerable communities.
Disaster preparedness
These
activities are designed to minimise loss of life and damage – for example by
removing people and property from a threatened location and by facilitating
timely and effective rescue, relief and rehabilitation. Preparedness is the
main way of reducing the impact of disasters. Community-based preparedness and
management should be a high priority in physical therapy practice management.
Disaster relief
This is a
coordinated multi-agency response to reduce the impact of a disaster and its
long-term results. Relief activities include rescue, relocation, providing food
and water, preventing disease and disability, repairing vital services such as
telecommunications and transport, providing temporary shelter and emergency
health care.
Disaster recovery
Once
emergency needs have been met and the initial crisis is over, the people
affected and the communities that support them are still vulnerable. Recovery
activities include rebuilding infrastructure, health care and rehabilitation.
These should blend with development activities, such as building human
resources for health and developing policies and practices to avoid similar
situations in future.
Disaster management
is linked with sustainable development, particularly in relation to vulnerable
people such as those with disabilities, elderly people, children and other
marginalised groups. Health Volunteers Overseas publications address some of
the common misunderstandings about disaster management.
No comments:
Post a Comment