Across the U.S, cases of severe weather such as storms and hurricanes tend to occur annually. This leads to the destruction of property, injuries, and loss of lives. Moreover, the outcome of severe weather is greatly influenced by the response of the healthcare personnel. This means that as a public health nurse, l have a crucial role in the coordination and implementation of a disaster plan. Therefore, during or after an event of severe weather, my roles will primarily revolve around helping injured and sick people with their medication, performing wound care, assisting the injured with toileting and several other activities of daily living, aiding with the transfer and repositioning of patients on hospital beds, and providing psychological support to those who are injured, waiting out the storm or lost their loved ones.
Educational activities primarily enforce effective disaster preparedness strategies. The education curriculum has greatly prepared me to undertake the various nursing roles in disaster management as mentioned above. This is because the curriculum contains several relevant public health disaster-related topics, such as delivering care in low resource settings, problems with unique implications during disasters, for instance, infectious disease, triage and appropriate care of injured patients, altered basic life-sustaining requirements for injured people, and psychological support.
Different states have a distinct disaster and emergency preparedness plans and stakeholders. In my local community, which is Georgia, there is the Georgia Emergency Response Management Plan that is designed to respond to the health needs of the people in Georgia during cases of severe weather. Georgia’s team consists of a collaboration of the Department of Public Health, the American Red Cross, the lead coordinating state agency, the Department of Human Services, Georgia Emergency Management Agency, and the local County Emergency Management Agencies. Moreover, to ensure that Georgia’s Emergency Response plan is effective, it is crucial for the plan to clearly communicate what the public is required to do before, during, and after severe weather. This should mainly include making the community aware of the evacuation process, where to seek shelter, and how to care for their basic medical needs in the course of or after severe weather.