Surveillance and Disaster Management: Reflective Writing and Disaster Response

This article discusses the roles and responsibilities of paramedical staff in a manmade disaster, specifically a road accident. The author reflects on the need for revised rules and regulations, awareness creation, and scientific engineering measures to prevent such accidents. The article also includes an action plan for disaster response in a shopping mall.

SURVEILLANCE AND DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Surveillance and disaster management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1SURVEILLANCE AND DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Table of Contents
Part 1: Reflective Writing..........................................................................................................2
Describe:....................................................................................................................................2
Reflect:.......................................................................................................................................2
Part 2: Disaster Response in regard to professional role............................................................4
Reference....................................................................................................................................7

2SURVEILLANCE AND DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Part 1: Reflective Writing
Describe:
The increasing number of road traffic accidents are a prime health concern in our
society these days. These traffic incidents throw a health challenge to our society, this paper
will be focussing on a particular road accident when a private car crashed into a crowded
shopping centre on a cloudy day (Ernstberger et al., 2015). This manmade disaster had a few
casualties and also involved an efficient paramedical staff to deal with the critical situation.
The roles and responsibilities of the paramedical team was important to understand in such a
situation to avoid any kinds of confliction (Adeloye et al., 2016). The casualties included 3
dead people, 5 people in very critical conditions, 8 people with major scratches and 12-20
people with very less or negligible scares.
Reflect:
According to me the rules and regulations considering the road accidents are needed
to be revised by the concerned authorities as there is an increasing amount of similar
tragedies similar to this issue. I believe that awareness creation is one of the most important
aspect of the prevention of these road accidents. There are different types of scientific
engineering measures which are important for controlling these disasters (Bazeli,
Aryankhesal & Khorasani-Zavareh, 2017). I believe that the paramedical staffs should be
keeping their cool while dealing with this situation. They should be understanding the
conditions of the injured people so that each of those injured patients receives treatment in
that way only.
On the other hand, I also believe that the road polices are sometimes too harsh on the
drivers as none of them would intentionally involve themselves with a road accident. The

3SURVEILLANCE AND DISASTER MANAGEMENT
scientific engineering measures which are integrated into the highways sometimes have flaws
as most of them are not tested before being installed in the environment I think a message of
road safety is important in every 50 metres in a road. There are different opinions about
controlling these road accidents, everyone has their own version of the prevention of these
road accidents (O’Hara et al., 2015). I believe that more than imposing technology or any
other significant measure, a sense of responsibility should be created among the drivers.
According to me, there was too much chaos right after the occurrence of this
manmade disaster. There are plenty of issues and challenges related to this disaster. The
foremost and the most important reason is the cloudy weather. I believe that the initial chaos
right after the accident was managed very well with the help of the different modules of the
paramedical team. I believe that the emergency response team were very much effective as
the tasks were subdivided into numerous categories. The team had three different units such
as the ambulance communication team, professional team and technical team (Goniewicz et
al., 2016). I think that without their help the situation would have been worse specially the
role of the Emergency Medical Dispatch Support Officer (EMDSO) were significant as he
was dedicatedly managing the ambulance service according to the nearest healthcare unit
(Fish, 2014). He was dispatching the critically injured patients to the hospitals and also
identifying the patients who need a just a paramedic treatment. The effectiveness of the
situation was well managed with the help of the support of EMDSO.
I also believe that the disaster response strategy could have been altered with more
participation of the local personnel’s who were there in the accident site. The disaster
response of these road accidents should be more altered with the use of the new laws and
regulations such as the intentional acts as these laws can be used to control these accidents to
a significant extent. I believe that the usage of the music systems in automobiles should be

4SURVEILLANCE AND DISASTER MANAGEMENT
always restricted, at the same time I believe that the way by which EMDSO tackled the
situation could have been altered with other preventive measures such as the identification of
the actual reasons behind these accidents.
From a completely different perspective, it can be said that the disaster managed plan
of this accident worked quite well to deal with the situation. Quick and efficient service was
very much required for the dealing with situation. According to me the other aspects of
disaster response planning should have been considered such as the management of the
available resources (Williamson et al., 2016). The data collected from various articles helps
in understanding these issues in a detailed way. I believe that additional approaches are
required to deal with this type of disaster management.
The effectiveness of the response team could have been improved with the help of a
model known as the estimation of patient waiting time. The model is proposed on the basis of
a hypothesize. The model considers the Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) for the
purpose of finding the sets of the parameters and also covers up the survival probability of the
patients. The waiting time of the ambulance can also be calculated with the help of this model
(Nasrollahzadeh, Khademi & Mayorga, 2018). The effectiveness of the response was really
good in this manmade disaster but could have been better with the integration of this model
as well.
Part 2: Disaster Response in regard to professional role
As an aspiring health professional I would like to state the role in this unit of the
paper considering this manmade disaster. Evaluation and improving the quality of services is
one of the prime objectives of a public health professional. I would like to promote road and
safety educational videos so that the fatality rate of the accidents is reduced. I would like get
the legislative support for the high risk behaviours associated with these project. In this

5SURVEILLANCE AND DISASTER MANAGEMENT
particular scenario I would have separated the injured peoples with the deceased ones
(Schneider, 2016). It will be my responsibility to look after the injured peoples in the first
place and provide them with the first aid service.
As a student of healthcare department we were always made to understand these types
of critical situations before making any more steps. This was the ideal situation when I can
focus on my area of expertise which is providing adequate service to the affected people. I
would have a completely different response in this event (Axelrod, Naso & Rosenberg,
2018). When I saw some of the causalities out of the building I already knew that some of
them were already ready by then, so I would have changed the priority of the paramedical
team associated with the disaster response. The tents which were building built as a
temporary medical facility should be clean and clear so would be my responsibility to set up
those tents.
I would have helped them to arrange the equipment’s outside the buildings are there
will be too much media exposure. I would have helped the paramedical facilities with my
medical knowledge. The classification of the different injured peoples would also be also
supported by me, as there will be a lot of non-technical persons involved in this quick
response teams (Rosen, 2015). Based upon my knowledge about how to deal with
complicated situations such as this, I would like to help the injured people to find their loved
and dear ones as there will be patients will be suffering minor scratches but will be finding it
difficult with the cope up with the trauma caused by the accident.
I know the fact that the mental hazards are also very important to be healed and most
of the risk mitigation team members will be only focus on the physical consequences of this
manmade disaster but I think that the mental traumas should also be considered so that those

6SURVEILLANCE AND DISASTER MANAGEMENT
unfortunate peoples can come back stronger in their lives. I could have managed these issues
in a more professional manner.
Action Step Potential Barriers
Keep the vehicle and people away from traffic. Local non-technical peoples.
Don’t move the seriously injured people right away
after the accident.
Paramedical team
Take photos and notes about the accident scene and
call the Police and nearest Paramedical team.
The panic created in after the
accident.
Take emergency medical measures and classify the
dead from the injured peoples.
The panic created in after the
accident.
Check whether the patients have other kinds of
diseases also then the treatment will be made by
specialists.
Anxiety and stress
Disposal products given by the paramedical team
should be kept away from the temporary tents.
Environmentalists
The plan which would have been followed by me during this disaster in the shopping
mall are as followings:
Table 1: My action plan considering this manmade disaster in the shopping mall
(Source: Created by the author)
The management of the disaster would have been done in a professional way if these
steps were followed. The paramedical teams should have been guided by me considering the
above steps. The affected people should be separated from other people who have very less
casualties. The Basic Life Support Medic (BLSM) which was integrated into the temporary
tents should be made available to the patients who are in most critical phase, as transportation
of that patient from that place to the nearest healthcare center could have taken a toll on
his/her life. I would like to use all the medical knowledge and experience to deal with this
unfortunate manmade accident (County, 2014). The action steps would be useful for the

7SURVEILLANCE AND DISASTER MANAGEMENT
investigating officers also who will be there to collect information about the status of the
injured peoples and the driver of that car which crashed into the crowded shopping center.

8SURVEILLANCE AND DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Reference
Adeloye, D., Thompson, J. Y., Akanbi, M. A., Azuh, D., Samuel, V., Omoregbe, N., & Ayo,
C. K. (2016). The burden of road traffic crashes, injuries and deaths in Africa: a
systematic review and meta-analysis. Bulletin of the World Health Organization,
94(7), 510.
Axelrod, S. D., Naso, R. C., & Rosenberg, L. M. (2018). Introduction. In Progress in
Psychoanalysis (pp. 23-36). Routledge.
Bazeli, J., Aryankhesal, A., & Khorasani-Zavareh, D. (2017). Exploring the perception of aid
organizations’ staff about factors affecting management of mass casualty traffic
incidents in Iran: a grounded theory study. Electronic physician, 9(7), 4773.
County, C. C. (2014). 2901 Williamsburg Terrace# G▪ Platte City▪ Missouri▪ 64079 816.431.
2600▪ www. fitchassoc. com.
Ernstberger, A., Joeris, A., Daigl, M., Kiss, M., Angerpointner, K., Nerlich, M., &
Schmucker, U. (2015). Decrease of morbidity in road traffic accidents in a high
income country–an analysis of 24,405 accidents in a 21 year period. Injury, 46, S135-
S143.
Fish, P. N. (2014). Army medical officer's guide. Stackpole Books.
Goniewicz, K., Goniewicz, M., Pawłowski, W., & Fiedor, P. (2016). Road accident rates:
strategies and programmes for improving road traffic safety. European journal of
trauma and emergency surgery, 42(4), 433-438.
Nasrollahzadeh, A. A., Khademi, A., & Mayorga, M. E. (2018). Real-Time Ambulance
Dispatching and Relocation. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management.

9SURVEILLANCE AND DISASTER MANAGEMENT
O’Hara, R., Johnson, M., Siriwardena, A. N., Weyman, A., Turner, J., Shaw, D., ... & Mason,
S. (2015). A qualitative study of systemic influences on paramedic decision making:
care transitions and patient safety. Journal of health services research & policy,
20(1_suppl), 45-53.
Rosen, G. (2015). A history of public health. JHU Press.
Schneider, M. J. (2016). Introduction to public health. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
Williamson, V., Creswell, C., Butler, I., Christie, H., & Halligan, S. L. (2016). Parental
responses to child experiences of trauma following presentation at emergency
departments: a qualitative study. BMJ open, 6(11), e012944.