New Delhi: As earthquakes continue to hit the South Asian countries, the most powerful being recorded in Nepal, experts in India came together under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to review emergency preparedness and response mechanisms in the South Asian region.
Experts also dwelled on ways of sustaining any on-going public health intervention and the provision of relief measures in such situations along with exploring alternative ways of providing healthcare facilities.
Urging for better preparedness that could help mankind deal with both manmade and natural disasters, experts highlighted the need for fortifying institutional mechanisms and integrating response mechanisms for carrying out effective disaster relief activities.
Dr P Ravindran, Director, Emergency Medical Relief, India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, urged for an institutional mechanism which in the event of disasters could rise to the occasion and checkmate the loss. He stressed that during the disasters it is the poor that is hit the worst.
Professor Vinod Chandra Menon, Founder Member of India’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), suggested that the delivery of emergency services during disasters is relative to the attitude of those providing these services. The efficacy and efficiency of facilities leaves much to be desired, he said.
“These are issues that will need to be considered when confronted by mass casualties as infrastructure is inadequate even in routine situations, and thus, would face a challenge if a situation of mass casualty occurs. He challenged practitioners to re-examine practices, citing the rescue of four people in Nepal via their heartbeats by an equipment called ‘Finder’ that was designed by the US space agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA),” he said.
In terms of medical preparedness even one life is valuable, Menon further emphasised.
In his presentation, Dr Anshu Sharma, Co-Founder, Sustainable Environment Ecological Development Society (SEEDS), focused on the need to ensure the integrity of buildings that house medical facilities, as these would be places that casualties would be taken to for treatment and management during major disasters.
Sharma also cited an example of the earthquake in Bam, in Iran, in the year 2003, when over 40,000 victims could not be treated because the hospitals there had collapsed.
He shared his experiences with a project that re-examined a popular South Asian city in anticipation of a major emergency which could affect existing structures. “As part of a project, we had checked the main political offices and police headquarters and discovered that those very places which were the likely structures from where emergency response would be coordinated during major disasters, would not have survived were a major disaster to strike, and were therefore recommended for urgent retrofitting.”
Sharma reminded the audience that during earthquakes, death and injury comes from collapsed roofs, shattered glass, electrical shocks etc. “Safeguards against such mishaps have to be reflected in building plans for structures earmarked for quake prone areas. Often the problem with regard to casualties is not the poor emergency response as much as the poor structures or even the lack of basic health structures,” he said.
Mohuya Chaudhuri shared her experience gained by researching stories in areas hit by, or prone to being hit by disasters. She averred that most of the structures designed to function during a disaster do not function in times of need. “When we talk of disasters, we talk of cyclones, landslides, earthquakes, but the truth is that we often do not prepare and end up saying we never expected this to happen. Sadly, most of the structures designed to function in a disaster do not function, and this is compounded by the lack of utility services like power, water etc.”
Mohuya said that those who are supposed to mitigate a disaster or raise awareness to ensure the safety of the public when one occurs are usually not ready when the calamity hits the ground. “While most public functionaries, in charge of disaster mitigation activities, do not like going to places prone to these disasters. Even the media is not looking in this direction, so the system ends up being unprepared,” she added.
