Preparedness
The focus of the Burn Disaster Program is to prepare North Carolina to handle catastrophic burn events. Work includes developing education and planning processes for burn care at all levels in the state.
The Burn Surge Disaster Program is about identifying your assets and resources, and both quantifying and qualifying your needs. The gap between what you have and what you need is what we must work to address. The key to success is driven by our need to be prepared through planning, and deliberate actions to improve, develop resources and develop a sense of readiness based on the gap analysis.
The Problem:
According to the 9/11 Commission Report, emergency response is a product of preparedness (Chapter 9). In the middle of an emergency, communities rely on private firms and local public servants such as first responders, namely fire, police, emergency medical service, and building safety professionals. However, policies that may look good on paper do not work when needed most. For example:
- Trauma/burn system challenges
- Administered by individual states, agencies
- Legislative mandates not uniform
- Interaction with burn resources unclear
- Communication systems remain problematic
The Solution:
It is easier to accomplish what you have set out to do if you are prepared for the obstacles you will face. By developing a culture of preparedness through education with new paradigms and different responses, we will be better able to face the challenges that come our way tomorrow. Our mindset must be: it can happen here, it can happen to me; no one else will be there to take care of the problem.
Emergencies and disasters, whether natural or manmade, come in many forms and may happen at any time: be prepared. This is true for first preparers, first responders, and first receivers. Keys to preparedness include the following:
- Asking tough questions
- Taking decisive action in a deliberate yet immediate way
- Meeting the needs for the health, safety, and security for the citizens of our state and our country
Because medical care is central to every potential disaster situation, our “surge” thinking should focus on maximizing survival, maximizing resources, and minimizing morbidity.
Quotations
“There are risks and costs to a program of action, but they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.”
John F. Kennedy
“Organized power can be opposed only by organized power. Much as I regret this, there is no other way.”
Albert Einstein, Letter to a pacifist student, 1941
"The price of greatness is responsibility."
Winston Churchill
"Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle."
Abraham Lincoln
"One man with courage makes a majority."
Andrew Jackson
"Well done is better than well said."
Ben Franklin
"Extreme remedies are very appropriate for extreme diseases."
Hippocrates
"He that is good at making excuses is seldom good at anything else."
Benjamin Franklin
"Carry your own lantern and you need not fear the dark."
Leo Rosten's Treasury of Jewish Quotations
"The best thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise and is not preceded by a period of worry and depression."
John Prescott, Boston College