The medical response to natural disasters: have we learned anything yet?

Citation

Tutt, N. (2001), "The medical response to natural disasters: have we learned anything yet?", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 10 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2001.07310aab.002

The medical response to natural disasters: have we learned anything yet?

The medical response to natural disasters: have we learned anything yet?

The international community used to learn well from its errors. Several decades ago, following major earthquakes and other sudden-impact disasters, one of the major lessons learned was that the victims were better served by local health services than by foreign medical teams or field hospitals. It soon became clear that this type of assistance arrived too late to make a difference in terms of saving lives and was not always appropriate – from a cultural or technological standpoint – for the affected country. This heightened sensitivity on the part of the international community translated into greater emphasis on disaster preparedness and a recognition that strengthening the capacity at the local level and fostering solidarity between neighbouring countries was the most effective use of resources.

Have we continued to learn from these experiences and to implement what were considered best practices, or is the trend now reversing itself in the international community? Today, are we earmarking less assistance for disaster preparedness and giving less regard to respecting established standards and levels of technology in the affected regions?

Hurricane Mitch and other recent global disasters hinted that, indeed, we may be back to square one. International assistance is again becoming a very high profile business that is not attuned, or worse, insensitive to local realities. Geared towards satisfying the urge in donor countries to do something quick and politically correct, often this aid is designed to meet the expectations of the public in donor countries rather than to focus on the rehabilitation or reconstruction needs of the victims.

For example, in recent earthquakes around the world, governments, Red Cross Societies or NGOs dispatched field hospitals weeks after the last casualties had received medical attention from local services. It would appear that the voice of the mass media carried more weight than the technical objections of WHO's local coordinators.

The latest, and as always excellent, publication of the World Disaster Report raised several important issues. One was the weak coordination role played by the UN agencies. The authors recognised, rightly so, that in a highly politicized environment, coordination is an uphill struggle.

Disasters: Preparedness and Mitigation in the Americas, July 2000