Disasters in 2015
Coincidentally, waiting until today to do this on health care disaster blog has given me an opportunity to look into a disaster that didn’t happen 10 years ago, 5 years ago, or last year—but three days ago. On Saturday April 25th, Nepal experienced a 7.8 earthquake affecting 8 million people that according to CNN news has more than 4,600 people dead, more than 9,000 injured, more than 1 million children urgently in need, and the count continues. As quake relief efforts continue today, officials warn that there are problems of getting aid into the country and then delivering it to some of the remote communities in desperate need.
Currently, there are worries about food and water supplies only lasting until the end of the week and so far the weather has showed no mercy to the country as thunderstorms and more bad weather threaten the region.
Also, according to a 2011 World Health Organization report, this country of 28 million has only 2.1 physicians and 50 hospital beds for every 10,000 people, making this disaster even worse from the healthcare prospective. In the hospitals, there are reports of doctors are washing up using sterile water and iodine poured from a bottle rather than hot water from a scrub sink, and instead of electric drills, relying on saws of the variety usually only used in war zones and natural disasters due to the lack of electricity. One doctor reported “I’ve seen a lot of situations around the world, and this is as bad as I’ve ever seen it.” The hospitals need more resources and personnel, and even though the help is more than willing to be given, it is not being received.
Countries around the world have launched massive aid operations to help victims of the Nepal earthquake, but the distribution of the resources and help is a challenge that Nepal is facing because of the size of this disaster. The question is, are we better prepared than before for this disaster? Well, the main problem seems to be how to effectively coordinate and organize the massive influx of humanitarian aid.
You may ask, how are there worries about food and water supplies and help with the hospitals with the enormous amounts of international aid that has been donated? Well, there have been three major obstacles identified that are slowing the efforts of distribution.
- Airport bottleneck
- Relief organizations say the tarmac at Tribhuvan International Airport remains jam-packed with a large number of cargo planes.
- Several aircraft carrying essential supplies have been turned away, or diverted to India and elsewhere.
- Damaged roads and infrastructure
- Remote areas are largely inaccessible
- The Nepalese government has not been able to provide relief to all affected areas because of difficulties transporting goods
- The helicopters to distribute goods are small and don’t fly in windy and cloudy conditions.
- The situation has deteriorated to the point where relief workers are as good as stranded.
- Ongoing damage assessment
- Authorities leading the response are still trying to fully understand which areas have been affected, how they are affected and what the priorities are.
In the past, what has been seen is that it takes a few days for supply and distribution lines to stabilize. They expect that it will be a few more days before the distribution becomes organized because the government is still constrained by the scale of the disaster. Now that the world has become more equip to help at a moments notice, hopefully in the future we can find ways to get around the obstacles that we are seeing now in this situation.
All information about this disaster has been taken from the following articles:
Ng, N. (2015). Nepal struggles to cope with international aid. http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/28/asia/nepal-earthquake-aid-struggle/index.html
Hume, T. (2015). Nepal earthquake’s victims overwhelm hospitals. http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/27/world/nepal-earthquake-bir-hospital/index.html
Watson, I., Mullen, J., & Smith-Spark, L. (2015). Nepal earthquake: death toll passes 4,700 as rescuers face challenges. http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/28/asia/nepal-earthquake/index.html
