Health Policy, Disaster Preparedness

Notes on Haiti From Chris Van Gorder, President and CEO of Scripps Health

Notes on Haiti — CEO Journal
Wednesday, March 10

While we continue to discuss our recent visits to Haiti and consider the need and our options for support and relief going forward, I wanted to share with you some more comments from members of the last relief team. As I’m sure you can tell from their words and the words of everyone who has been part of this relief effort, our work made a significant difference in a country far from home and made a significant impact personally on those who were able to participate.

Deliberate Disasters

It’s a beautiful summer morning. You’re conversing with colleagues in the meeting room of your medical association building, when a deafening explosion occurs nearby. After a stunned silence, cries for help begin to rise up from the street. As several of you make your way outside to survey the damage, you see a bus with its roof peeled off like a sardine can. Discolored bodies are draped over the sides through shattered windows; there is slight movement of other bodies both in and outside of the bus amid splattered blood and body parts.

Laboratory Confirmation of Diseases Resulting From Biological Weapons

Two crucial facts are apparent to those of us who work on preparation for a possible attack by biological weapons: 1) The diseases considered the most likely in this setting are rarely if ever seen in medical practice; and 2) Time to identification and characterization of the agent is vital to marshalling the appropriate resources to defend the population at risk. Defensive measures in the form of antibiotics, vaccines, and various public health measures are useless unless we know how and when to deploy them.

County Urges Medical Professionals to Enroll

Imagine an envelope containing anthrax is received at a main San Diego County post office. Hundreds of people are potentially exposed. A high-priority alert is issued from the Emergency Medical Alert Network (EMAN) of San Diego County. The alert provides medical professionals throughout the county with information about who may have been exposed, clinical signs and symptoms, specimen collection and testing, and various treatment options for those exposed who may or may not yet be symptomatic.

Why Wait?

Imagine a large-scale disaster or disease outbreak strikes San Diego. You are able to confirm the safety of your loved ones by following your pre-established home and worksite emergency communication plan. Your practice/facility is not directly impacted by the event, and you see on the news that local health resources are becoming quickly overwhelmed. You want to help and decide to go the disaster site and “just help out.” With your recently created disaster backpack in hand, you hit the road.

Katrina Response

On December 7, 2005, nearly 50 physicians gathered at SDCMS to listen to the experiences of four of their San Diego County colleagues who had responded to the Katrina and Rita disasters: Dr. Jake Jacoby, Dr. Brent Eastman, Dr. Asha Devereaux, and Dr. Nicole Chauche.

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