In the case of a natural disaster, public health administration is instrumental in reducing casualties and putting in place mitigation strategies to ensure effective management of such crises in the future. Therefore, they must be prepared to respond to dynamic emergencies related to a disaster. Practitioners in this field might approach the situation through the dispatching of first responders to the most affected areas ( Moore et al., 2007). These responders are responsible for saving lives and prevent other undesirable health outcomes. Other response related undertakings include management of information systems, especially those that enhance rescue and response coordination and ensure inter-institutional collaboration to reduce the impact of the disaster.
Hospital administration practitioners would respond by handling mass fatalities through emergency healthcare services, admission of patients, identification, and tracking (Chaffee et al., 2006) . They could also be in the frontline in pain management, stabilizing and assuring of patients. In cases where the healthcare system is overwhelmed, they could also offer mental health services such as individuals traumatized by the disaster. Most importantly, they might be in constant communication with other responders if there is space for extra casualties or a need for medical supplies to respond to the emergency effectively.
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In the wake of the 2011 Tsunami in Japan, the public health administration was on the frontline in coordinating the evacuation of casualties. It can partly be likened to what public health administration would do when faced with such a crisis since, in Japan, practitioners in this segment were responsible for providing information about the hazard and were involved in the provision of mass care. They were not, however, engaged in warning masses about the tsunami before its occurrence. It is ironic that other than having hospital administration staff swiftly respond to the emergency through the admission of patients, treating them and stabilizing them, there was a significant reduction in nurses and doctors to offer emergency services. This was partly influenced by the fear of radiation caused by the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which occurred concurrently with the tsunami( Ochi et al., 2016). Regardless, healthcare practitioners who were at work and reported in subsequent days offered healthcare services such as emergency surgery, medication and pain management to the casualties as expected.
References
Chaffee, M. W., Oster, N. S., ASSOCIATE EDITORS, P. D. A., Darling, R. G., Jacoby, I., Noji, E., & Suner, S. (2006). The role of hospitals in disaster. Disaster medicine , 34.
Ochi, S., Tsubokura, M., Kato, S., Iwamoto, S., Ogata, S., Morita, T., ... & Saito, Y. (2016). Hospital staff shortage after the 2011 triple disaster in Fukushima, Japan-an earthquake, tsunamis, and nuclear power plant accident: a case of the Soso district. PloS one , 11 (10), e0164952.
Moore, S., Mawji, A., Shiell, A., & Noseworthy, T. (2007). Public health preparedness: a systems-level approach. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health , 61 (4), 282-286.
