OHS & Disaster 2019 DME Answers

(a) Define the term disaster (2 marks):

A disaster is a sudden, calamitous event that seriously disrupts the functioning of a community or society, causing human, material, and economic or environmental losses that exceed the community’s ability to cope using its own resources.

(b) Outline three (3) phases of a disaster (6 marks):

1. Pre-impact Phase: This is the period before the disaster strikes. It involves hazard identification, risk reduction (mitigation), early warning systems, and intense preparedness activities.
2. Impact Phase: The exact moment the disaster strikes and the immediate aftermath. It is characterized by maximum destruction, chaos, and the initiation of emergency search, rescue, and acute relief operations.
3. Post-impact (Recovery) Phase: The period where immediate threats to life have subsided. The focus shifts to rehabilitation, rebuilding infrastructure, psychological counseling, and restoring the community to normalcy.

(c) Explain the various measures taken in the prevention of disasters (12 marks):

• Environmental Conservation: Engaging in mass afforestation and discouraging wetland degradation to naturally prevent floods, landslides, and droughts.
• Policy Formulation & Enforcement: Establishing strict building codes to ensure structures can withstand earthquakes, and enacting zoning laws to prevent human settlement in high-risk areas like steep slopes or flood plains.
• Public Education & Sensitization: Running community awareness programs via radio and local councils to educate the masses on the risks of their environment and how to avoid triggering hazards (e.g., avoiding bush burning).
• Early Warning Systems: Utilizing meteorological data to forecast severe weather patterns (El Niño) and broadcasting early warnings to allow communities to evacuate before the hazard strikes.
• Infrastructure Upgrades: Constructing physical barriers such as dams, levees, and deep drainage channels to safely redirect massive water flows away from human settlements.
• Routine Maintenance: Regularly inspecting and repairing industrial plants, chemical storage tanks, and electrical grids to prevent catastrophic man-made technological disasters.

(a) Define the term “Rehabilitation” (2 marks):

Rehabilitation is the transitional phase of disaster recovery that focuses on restoring the affected population’s basic services, livelihoods, physical health, and psychological well-being to a functional state.

(b) Describe the roles of “Red Cross” in disaster management (18 marks):

• Emergency First Aid and Medical Care: Rapidly deploying mobile medical teams to disaster epicenters to triage victims, provide life-saving first aid, and evacuate the critically injured to hospitals.
• Search and Rescue Operations: Collaborating with local authorities to physically locate and extract victims trapped under rubble, floods, or landslides.
• Provision of Relief Non-Food Items (NFIs): Distributing essential survival kits including tents, heavy blankets, tarpaulins, cooking utensils, and mosquito nets to displaced populations.
• Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH): Preventing secondary epidemics (like Cholera) by setting up mobile water purification plants, distributing chlorine tablets, and constructing emergency latrines.
• Food Security and Nutrition: Organizing the logistics and distribution of emergency food rations and specialized therapeutic foods for malnourished children in disaster camps.
• Tracing and Family Reunification: Operating the “Restoring Family Links” program to track down missing persons, register unaccompanied minors, and reunite families separated during the chaos.
• Psychosocial Support: Deploying trained counselors to provide trauma therapy and emotional support to victims dealing with severe loss and PTSD.
• Blood Bank Management: Organizing emergency blood donation drives to ensure hospitals have sufficient blood stock to manage mass casualties resulting from the disaster.
• Disaster Preparedness Training: In the pre-disaster phase, the Red Cross trains community volunteers in basic first aid, early warning recognition, and evacuation protocols.

(a) State six (6) causes of fire outbreaks in health facilities (6 marks):

1. Faulty Electrical Wiring: Old, frayed, or poorly insulated wires sparking inside walls or ceilings.
2. Overloaded Sockets: Plugging too many high-voltage medical machines into a single extension cord or socket.
3. Improper Chemical Storage: Poor storage of highly flammable substances like surgical alcohol, ether, and oxygen cylinders.
4. Unattended Heating Equipment: Leaving sterilization boilers, kitchen stoves, or patient space-heaters on and unattended.
5. Smoking in Prohibited Areas: Careless disposal of burning cigarette butts by patients, staff, or visitors near combustible materials.
6. Arson: Intentional setting of fires due to malicious intent or severe psychiatric disturbances by patients.

(b) As a health facility manager, explain how you would minimize fire outbreaks in your facility (14 marks):

• Regular Electrical Audits: I would hire certified electricians to conduct routine inspections and prompt maintenance of all wiring, replacing old cables and preventing socket overloading.
• Install Fire Detection Systems: I would ensure the facility is equipped with highly sensitive smoke detectors and heat sensors wired to a central alarm system to catch fires early.
• Provide Fire Fighting Equipment: I would place the correct types of fire extinguishers (Water, CO2, Dry Powder) and fire blankets strategically in all wards, clearly marked and easily accessible.
• Strict Enforcement of No-Smoking Policies: I would designate the entire hospital interior as a strictly enforced smoke-free zone with heavy penalties for violators.
• Safe Storage of Combustibles: I would mandate that highly flammable chemicals and compressed oxygen cylinders be stored in isolated, well-ventilated, and fire-proof storage rooms.
• Staff Training and Drills: I would organize mandatory, biannual fire safety training and evacuation drills so that all staff know exactly how to use an extinguisher and evacuate patients safely.
• Clear Emergency Exits: I would enforce a strict policy that all corridors, stairwells, and emergency fire exits must remain 100% unobstructed by trolleys, beds, or equipment at all times.