Disaster Preparedness in a School
Even though various natural disasters exist, house and building fires are the most common ones that many institutions have to battle with. They occur without any prior warning, and consequences are often fatal and dire. In addition to destroying valuable property, worth millions of dollars, building fires equally leads to loss of numerous lives. In 2018, for instance, the United States’ fire departments responded to about 1,318,500 fire cases. During the same year, the union reported 3,655 fatality cases and 15,200 civilian injuries related to building and house fires. Properties of approximately $25.6 billion were equally destroyed, the most extreme one being the California fires that accounted for about $12.4 billion. Based on these massive losses, most institutions, businesses, and corporations have installed fire extinguishers, alarms, and advertisements as preparedness measures. The most common ad that you will often encounter in many buildings is “Do Not Scramble In Case Of Fire Outbreaks, Just Walk Out.” The statement is not merely a decoration but carries significant meaning. It is one of the measures that should be taken during an emergency to minimize the risk of loss of lives. It simply implies that scrambling would lead to congestion at the entrance doors and lead to more fatalities and injuries. Individuals reading the advertisement would, therefore, be prepared when they visit such areas.
Schools are an ideal community setting that is often impacted by the given advertisement. An individual would rarely miss such notices in university and college buildings. They are commonly positioned on posters next to buildings that are usually at risk of fire outbreaks. The choice to erect such posters within the premises of learning institutions could be guided by various reasons, the most basic one being that schools often host a large number of people at a time (Kiper and Geist, 2020). In case of an outbreak of building fires, students are likely to scramble their way out, causing more fatalities and injuries. It is equally essential to note that schools, like chemical factories, have research centers where students come into contact with explosive substances that might spark a fire outbreak. This increased risk for fire outbreak calls for preparedness measures, the given advertisement being one of them. Ideally, in these preparedness interventions, a nurse has a significant role to play. In addition to providing medical services to victims whenever such an incident occurs, they equally offer education on how to minimize such outbreaks. They equally educate students about various strategies that could be used to mitigate fire emergencies. Importantly, they could as well coordinate the entire process of disaster preparedness within a school, where they take part in physical designs of intervention plans.
Disaster preparedness is an extensive exercise that a community health nurse can rarely implement on their own without the support of other stakeholders (Nies and McEwen, 2019). In a school setting, in this case, a college or university, the nurse should collaborate with the head of the emergency department. This collaboration promotes the sharing of tasks and ideas, which makes the whole process easy and manageable. Collaboration in nursing is an important aspect. It is a measure of how effective and successful a particular healthcare center is (Nies and McEwen, 2019). Without collaboration, regarding disaster preparedness in a school, an emergency could not be handled effectively. One person might think that the other individual is the one entitled to a particular role and vice versa. Such confusion could delay the delivery of services and risk people’s lives, where fatalities are involved. Collaboration between a community health nurse and the head of an emergency department in a university, therefore, ensures that roles are divided among the players, achieving efficient delivery of services.
References
Kiper, V., & Geist, R. (2020). Nurses on the frontline: Improving community health. Nursing made Incredibly Easy, 18(3), 22-26.
Nies, M. A., & McEwen, M. (2019). Community/public health nursing: Promoting the health of populations (7th Ed.). Saunders.