Disaster Management Nursing: Lessons from the California Wildfire

This presentation examines the crucial role of nurses in disaster management, using the California wildfire as a case study. It highlights the four stages of disaster management: preparing, responding, recovering, and resourcing, and details how nurses contribute to each stage. In the preparation st...Read More

Disaster
management and
nursing
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Introduction:
 Natural calamities are a very important
issue in the society and disaster
response requires a robust nursing
force.
 The nurses provide emergency relief,
triage nursing, wound care, disease
management and overall support the
crucial time of crisis (Veenema, 2018).
 This presentation will explore the
nurses and their role in disaster
management, taking the example of
California Wildfire.

California wildfire: the unexpected
fatality
 The California wildfires broke in the month of
November 2018, and it devastated both end
of the nation in rapid succession.
 The disaster had been carried out in 2
monstrous blazes, both of which has claimed
at least 87 lives while laying waste to a total
area of nearly 400 square miles, according to
the California Department of Forestry and
Fire Protection.
 Hundreds of people are missing along with it,
indicating at the devastating impact that the
disaster has had.

California wildfire: the need for
disaster management
 Such disasters end up in creating a
huge impact on the society.
 With death tolls rising up, the number
of injured, lost and terrified is sky
rocketed at the time of any disaster.
 As a result, the need for nursing care
and management is crucial (Usher et
al., 2015).
 The disaster management in such
conditions is needed to be provided in
systematic step by step format.

Stages of disaster management
 There are 4 stages of disaster management that can be employed to
manage the impact of such large scale disasters.
 The stage are prepare, response, recovery, and resources.
 Each stage is associated with a systematic and step by step
understanding and evaluation of the impact of the disaster and
provide interventions according to the evaluation (Oloruntoba,
Sridharan & Davison, 2018).
 Nurses, especially community health nurses slip into the role of
emergency relief nurses to address and facilitate successful
competition of the stages.

Stage 1: preparing
 The first stage is preparing, which is associated with responding to the
threats and warnings issues by the relevant authorities.
 The activities to be carried out includes education, information dissemination,
triage and if need be even evacuation (Oloruntoba, Sridharan & Davison,
2018).
 The nurses provide the education, information dissemination and triage
training.
 Life-saving skills such as CPR, first aid, and use of personal protective
equipment are carried out by nurses
 The nurses are even given triage and disaster management training to
respond to threatening situations.
 Even in evacuation, nurses play a fundamental role in counselling, coaching
and managing the crowd (Osman, 2016).

Stage 2: responding
 The next and most important step is responding to the disaster.
 This is mainly concerned with providing emergency relief and medical
care to the victims.
 The community nurses provide essential emergency medical care and
long-term relief (Veenema, 2018).
 The nurses have to provide medical assistance, fooding assistance, and
even facilitate sheltering support for the victims.
 They address to the range of care needs of the victims by performing
proper assessments, prioritizing injuries, communicating effectively, and
collaborating with other providers.

Stage 3: recovering
 The third stage is recovering which is associated with recovering from
the aftermath of the disaster (Osman, 2016).
 Concerning the California Wildfires, the disaster management
currently is in the recovering phase.
 In this stage the nurses provide long term relief and assistance,
especially emotional, psycho-social and spiritual assistance
(Veenema, 2018).
 Post traumatic stress disorder and several related mental issues
haunt the disaster survivors, the nurses provide support and
assistance to PTSD victims as well.

Stage 4: resources
 The last stage is the resourcing, where
the nurses are required to consolidate
the available resources and support to
provide safe and comfortable living to
the victims
 In this case, the nurses are required to
perform risk mitigation and analysis of
the available resources and in certain
cases, even advocate the need for more
resources to address the need.
 Allocation of amenities, including food,
clothing, medication and even
accommodation are activities handled
by community nurses

Involving other agencies
 Involving support and assistance from range of different agencies is a
very important step of the disaster management and planning for the
nurses.
 The other agencies include mental health support, relief teams, not
for profit organizations, social care volunteering services, care homes,
and sometimes even international and national relief teams can
provide assistance.
 The nurses often have to themselves contact the agencies or
advocate the need for involving certain agencies to authorities
(Veenema, 2018).

Conclusion
 On a concluding note, the nurses have a crucial role in facilitating
care and provide relief in a post disaster crisis.
 This presentation helped highlight the exact range of actions taken
and managed by the nurses.
 There is conspicuous need for more funding and training for these
nurses to help them provide better care in disaster situations.

References
 Oloruntoba, R., Sridharan, R., & Davison, G. (2018). A proposed
framework of key activities and processes in the preparedness and
recovery phases of disaster management. Disasters, 42(3), 541-570.
 Osman, N. N. S. (2016). Disaster management: Emergency nursing and
medical personnel’s knowledge, attitude and practices of the East Coast
region hospitals of Malaysia. Australasian emergency nursing
journal, 19(4), 203-209.
 Usher, K., Redman-MacLaren, M. L., Mills, J., West, C., Casella, E.,
Hapsari, E. D., ... & Amy, Y. Z. (2015). Strengthening and preparing:
enhancing nursing research for disaster management. Nurse education
in practice, 15(1), 68-74.
 Veenema, T. G. (Ed.). (2018). Disaster nursing and emergency
preparedness. Springer Publishing Company.