Disaster in our life time

When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf coast in 2005. It flooded 80% of New Orleans. This displaced millions of people and caused the death of 1883 people. This flood water also trapped 100 000 people in the city. Food became scares the water undrinkable because it was flooded with sewage. There was no place to go people got trapped on their roofs or attics just having to wait to be rescued. The rich fled the city and the poor, the homeless and the elderly were trapped. There were significant barriers to providing healthcare, barriers like: people could not be reached or leave because of the massive amount of water. There was no facilities available to provide health care in. Coupled with the country being completely unprepared for a disaster on this scale. The government had to send the National Guard in to render assistance ,because the local community did not have the manpower to do so. But it took the government days to respond and when they did it was not enough because of the lack of experience in dealing with a crisis on this scale. Although FEMA had ranked New Orleans had been ranked as the most vulnerable city in case of a natural disaster nothing was done to prepare for this. This is largely due to economics and politics. Economically the government did not want to put money in to preparing for something that might happen. The top three FEMA directors were all political appointees with no experience. So today ten years later the city is still rebuilding tens of thousands of people cannot return because there no housing or jobs available to return to. I can’t imagine how it must have been a healthcare worker during that time. How to provide care with no equipment or facilities available coupled with completely being overwhelmed by the amount of people needing care. To me it seems like trying to put a forest fire out with a cup of water. This now brings up the question, “are we better prepared for the next disaster?” I personally don’t think so. People tend to forget quickly, coupled with political discourse and having the financial ability to prepare for a disaster. When it comes to finances there is a lot of disagreement about who needs to fund the disaster preparedness. Nobody wants to and in the end nobody is prepared. We can merely try and prepare ourselves and try and help as many as we can when a disaster occurs

According to the online news article Fire Engineering (2006), before Hurricane Katrina struck, the major concern that emergency disaster responders were worried about was the toxicity of flood waters and outbreak of disease. However, this didn’t turned out to be the real concern. When the actual hurricane struck, one of the biggest concerns that emergency healthcare responders faced was the disruption of the healthcare delivery system that impeded the delivery of adequate care to people with chronic and urgent healthcare needs (Fire Engineering, 2006). Some of the problems they faced were the lack of healthcare workers and transportation of patients from one hospital to another where safer and more adequate care can be given.. According to Fire Engineering (2006), a good amount doctors and nurses left the city of New Orleans prior to Hurricane Katrina’s landfall to avoid the disaster. In addition, there was not a system in placed and sufficient transportation available to move patients from one hospital to another where they can receive more adequate, safer care. In the healthcare field, those who responded to this disaster were local and national healthcare workers.

Based on the comments made by the mayor of New Orleans at that time, I believe that our nation has learned a lesson from this tragic event and that plans are now being implemented to respond to natural disasters in a more efficient, timely and proper manner. For example, rules are now being or have been implemented that a city wide plan for hospitals are to be in placed in case of a natural disaster. Individual hospitals are now not being left alone by themselves to generate emergency plans for their staff and patients in case of a natural disaster (Fire Engineer, 2006). Government authorities are also now required to guarantee that in an event of a disaster, hospitals are ensured to have the necessary supplies needed to care for patients (Fire Engineer, 2006). Also, when transporting patients from one facility to another, systems are now also being in placed to facilitate easier and safer hand off of patient medical records (Fire Engineer, 2006).

Reference:

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: lessons learned by doctors and hospitals. (2006). Fire Engineering, 159(9), 44-46. Retrieved from: http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.summit.csuci.edu:2048/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=cc1e1762-b95b-45a3-ac23-af99fe5e45f5%40sessionmgr4004&vid=4&hid=4102

I am not even sure where to begin… I was so nervous and timid and would get flustered over the silliest of things. I didn’t have a system to get ready or a system to start my day at the hospital. Now I am much more comfortable at the hospital and I have a working system. I know that will continue to improve and I will always be working on modifying my routine.

I enjoy being thrown in the mix and learning on the fly. I feel like a lot of nursing school was just that. The famous saying “I’ve done this a thousands times”

when the truth is this is your first time on a real person. One day that saying will be true but I will still not be an expert. I think that might be the art of nursing, never being an expert robot, but being a flexible confident compassionate person always ready for the challenge.

I am excited for the next step: being a new grad. I will take what I have learned in school and be able to stand up straight and take on the challenge with a smile!

I will one day do this a thousand times.

We’re almost there! It’s hard to believe that we are coming to the end of our program and the end of our med-surg content. I still feel like there is so much to learn, which is probably  because there is! Going into nursing I was excited about the academic nature of the healthcare field. There is always something to learn and what we know, or think we know, is always changing. Now in the midst of nursing school my feelings of excitement have shifted a bit towards feelings of being overwhelmed. There is in fact an enormous amount of information to learn and sometimes I feel I am only retaining a very small percentage of it.

Looking back at our first semesters I do have to admit I have vastly more knowledge now than I did at the beginning of the program. The dreaded ATI tests have become smoother and I’ve gained more confidence in the clinical setting.  I’ve learned so much through our clinical rotations and at this point I think I will excel the most through getting out and working in the field.  I’m looking forward to public health next semester and getting to see a different side of nursing than we have seen in the acute care setting.

I’m excited to finish school and start working but it is going to be an interesting transition. I’ve been working for my current employer for five and a half years. I work part time during the semester and always work full time when I can between semesters. I enjoy my current job and love my coworkers. Sometimes I have to work really hard to remind myself why I decided to go to nursing school and make this huge transition in my career in the first place. In the end I know it will be worth it and am really proud of myself for pushing my comfort zone and doing something new but it’s not to say that it has been easy!

I often find myself in the situations that I now respond differently. A couple of month ago, I helped a person who was stung by the stingray on the beach. I guess the stingray hit the artery because the blood was squirting from the leg of that young boy. I immediately started acting in the way I would not have acted before the start of the nursing school. I introduced myself, asked for permission to help, sent for a life guard/extra help, got a towel and asked him to push above the wound, etc. It was weird to me that other people did not seem to know what to do. His friends even attempted to stop the bleeding by pushing below the wound (I asked him to elevate the foot and press above bleeding site. They took it literally and started pushing above, but the foot was up, so they were actually pushing below – that would not have helped to stop the bleeding!).

My friends also often ask for my advice and explanations of the health issues. I am always happy to share whatever I learned and be helpful for people around me. I do hope that I will be able to remember all of the basic things I have learned and turn this foundation into a more working and practical knowledge and experience.