Disaster in Franklin County: A Public Health Simulation Essay Example

a diagram as shown below.

The overall duty of decision-making in operation belonged to the incident commander. The directors and supervisors were to oversee the whole process was successful through facilitating guidance, communication and coordinating the different groups involved in the rescue mission

c) Discussion the resources available to the community health nurse to deal with situations outside the nurse’s scope of practice.

A disaster management setting considers every possible mannerism of action that can improve the rescue activities and ensure less mortality rate. Patterson, Weil, and Patel (2009) argues that it affords a community health nurse the equipment and resources that would otherwise not have been available since, ordinarily, a nurse gets access to conventional medical related resources. According to Price and Vojinovic, (2008) the emphasis that extra resources facilitate emergency task completion and include items such as emergency food and water supply, sandbags, mapping, special evacuation vehicles, and floatation equipment. Emergency food and water supply allow the nurses to cater for the nutrition needs of affected populations. Sandbags, mapping equipment, special evacuation vehicles, and floatation equipment make rescue procedures easier.

d) Description actions taken by the community health nurse when encountered with possible emergency situations during the door-to-door interviews.

The door-to-door interviews are a crucial part of emergency service during disasters. They provide an opportunity to understand the depth of emergent challenges. The challenges experienced in such activities required immediate action to ensure desirable results. Counseling was ranked among the most vital support needed when emergency situations are encountered. Some affected people got panicked and such meant devastating health issues if not responded to, with care. Individuals in such situations also required first aid services to stabilize them

before sustainable solutions could be deliberated. Some of the emergency situations discovered concerned the need for physical support since providing relief was crucial to ensuring proper recovery of affected persons. Upon taking note that some of the affected people were in delicate health, community health nurses took the initiative to evacuate them to safer grounds from where their health could be monitored better.

e) Description actions taken by the community health nurse to help the people who were interviewed cope with the situations after the flooding. Discuss techniques that were used or could have been used to calm the fears of the people interviewed.

According to Price and Vojinovic (2008), community health nurses need to develop solutions for the long term issues. The nurses, in this case, could have engaged the community in interactive processes allowing them to begin defining how they would go about rebuilding their lives. An important aspect of such processes is that they would foster teamwork and brainstorming processes from where the community would rebuild its society from the ground up at a steady pace. Apprehending the fact that similar crisis can emerge again is important. Community health nurses with such perspective would be in a position to prepare the community to be ready in case of similar eventualities. This would involve efforts to integrate the community in all affairs of the disaster preparedness and management.

f) Discussion how other nursing personnel could be prepared to help in responding to a similar emergency with a much larger affected area (e.g., the effect of Hurricane Katrina).

Larger crisis situations such as Hurricane Katrina require more personnel and better-equipped teams. As such, the response teams should be

prepared to handle tough tasks within a limited time. They should receive training on how to respond to emergency situations. They should have up to date census to aid in the quicker evacuation of affected areas. People respond differently when hit by emergencies. Nursing personnel should have the skills for preventing the masses from panic attacks which can mean frustration in managing the disaster. According to Stanhope and Lancaster (2013), it is important to create disaster plans and participate in yearly disaster drills. Nurses should be engaged in training exercises with emergency evacuation teams such as firefighters to sharpen their ability to evacuate individuals from high-risk areas.

References

1. Patterson, O., Weil, F., & Patel, K. (2009). The Role of Community in Disaster Response: Conceptual Models. Population Research And Policy Review, 29(2), 127-141. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11113-009-9133-x
2. Price, R. & Vojinovic, Z. (2008). Urban flood disaster management. Urban Water Journal, 5(3), 259-276.
3. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15730620802099721
4. Stanhope, M. & Lancaster, J. (2013). Foundations of Nursing in the Community: Community-oriented Practice. Elsevier Health Sciences.