In the Ted Talk we watched in class by Hans Rosling, he gave
some statistics on the decreasing rate of deaths from natural disasters. While he concluded that the rate is down
(because “most things improve”), natural disasters are still a global concern
impacting population health. Over the
summer, I read a fascinating book called Five
Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital, by Sheri
Fink. The well-researched account recalls the events that took place at
Memorial Hospital in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Unable to evacuate all patients, in
particular those depending on life-giving machines, hospital staff bunkered
down to face the storm and continue to provide care. After the storm passed and the floods set in,
the situation deteriorated quickly. Despite warnings from health and safety
officials, the hospital had failed to set up its back-up generators above the
flood plane, and lost power to most areas of the building long before everyone
could be rescued. This presented doctors
with very difficult decisions to be make when it was not possible to evacuate
all patients, as the lights flickered and the sewage system backed up into the
hallways and people began to whisper of euthanasia… (I won’t give away the
rest; I would seriously recommend the book!)
Lack of adequate evacuation/shelter opportunities presents a
clear public health concern. We touched briefly in class on the threat of
living in disaster-ridden areas and methods of inhabitants for coping with the
dangerous conditions. New Orleans is
unfortunately one of these places, and one coping mechanism people had when
they could not evacuate was to seek refuge in hospitals like Memorial. In this instance, even the hospital was not
able to provide a functional shelter to those who had previously depended on
it. When the place that is supposed to preserve
your health cannot even keep the lights on, what does that say about emergency disaster
preparedness? If these concerns aren’t being addressed in one of the most
disaster-prone regions of our country, how can we hope to continue to reduce
the rate of deaths from natural disasters?
What example are we setting for the rest of the world? We can only hope that lessons were learned and
such simple mistakes will never be made again.
Awesome post Sydney. Emergency preparedness is indeed a big part of Public Health. And I would say, its more about learning from other disaster prone regions of the world and adapting their learning to our country. This years flooding again badly hit Louisiana but I guess there was better preparedness. In emergency preparedness, a big resource for us here are the documented learning from other parts of the world where they face numerous such incidences and cope with them.
ReplyDeleteSydney, thank you for your recommendation, I will definitely search for the read. It is frightening to reflect on such situations and to think that it has happened so close to home not too long ago! As developed countries in North America, I completely agree with you that we are seen as setting examples for the rest of the developing world and we should approach action as such. You mentioned the TED talk we watched in class given by Hans Rosling and his son, what I also found fascinating from that talk which also was mentioned was that the media, although they report and research the events in a given area, knew very little when it came to current statistics. I would imagine that this incident at Memorial Hospital in New Orleans as you mentioned here also was not reported on in the mainstream media? I only am speaking from what we also see in Canada on American news networks such as CNN, Fox News, etc. Frustration comes time and time again with little attention that these incidences get in a modern time such as this! Which reminds me of a link I watched a couple of years ago on tribal communities in the flood-stricken New Orleans and how they believed they were being ignored by media and as a result, not getting the relief and aid they needed. If you are interested, I posted the link below. Perhaps starting with increase coverage and information sharing will we only be able to identify the problems, pose valuable solutions, will we be able to set a viable example to the rest of the world!
ReplyDeleteTribal Communities Article by DemocracyNow.org (2005):
http://www.democracynow.org/2005/10/10/indian_tribes_and_hurricane_katrina_overlooked
Sydney! What a crazy coincidence! I just (two days ago) listened to a podcast on Radiolab called “Playing God” that was about this same exact story. It seems that the subject of public health preparedness is popping up quite a bit in the media lately… The podcast was amazing, and I may even read this book for more details. At the end of the podcast (not sure if it was talked about in the book), the host talked about how a group of public health professionals came together at a large conference (in Baltimore I think?) to discuss what they should do if a situation like this occurred again; except this time the situation was if a rare and deadly influenza swept the nation and the only way to survive it was through ventilators. The conference actually consisted of many community members, think of like a public town hall meeting situation, but with more people. So the public health professionals that were hosting the meeting actually let the people discuss what the best option would be: to give the ventilators to those who were most likely to survive (think young people in good health, babies, etc.), give the ventilators to those who would be the most helpful in the pandemic (scientists, doctors), or to have it be a random lottery, that everyone has the same chance. I’ll let you listen to the podcast to find out what the public voted on! Which option would you choose? What a hard question to think about…
ReplyDeleteHere is the link to the podcast:
http://www.radiolab.org/story/playing-god/
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ReplyDeleteAwesome post, Sydney! I will definitely have to try to find the time to read your book recommendation. It awful to think that with all of the weather issues Louisiana has, they do not have a good plan for natural disasters. Just look at the problems they are currently having with the massive amount of flooding there. I have a little bit of experience with natural disaster planning after my summer internship at the Montgomery County Health Department. I gained this experience after helping clean up the mess left behind a severe storm. I helped the food inspector of the department go through restaurants and grocery stores. The almost 24 hour power outage devastated these people. Following that mess, I wrote an article for the local newspaper on preparedness and I found out a lot of people found it useful. I am with you and think we need a national standard on emergency preparedness.
ReplyDelete