Natural Disaster

Public Health during a Natural Disaster
It is amazing how we sometimes take certain necessities for granted. While I was in high school which was also a boarding school in Cape Coast, the central region of Ghana, West Africa, there was water shortage for about four weeks. The worst experience I had to face within the three years in high school. We had to walk about three miles, wait a couple of minutes in a line to fetch a bucket of water which we used for bathing, washing our utensils, washing our cloths and for cleaning the bath and restrooms. I was fortunate because my parents sent me filtered bottle water to drink, and not everyone was fortunate enough to have that privilege, but I still had to go for two to three trips before I would be able to get enough water to do all my other chores. Some of the students found other ways like cleaning their plates with tissues other than cleaning it with water and soap. It was frustrating and stressful and due to the fact that, we had to wake up very early to make our journey for water, we slept in class most of the time because we were tired. The water shortage which was caused by lack of rainfall and excessive heat dried the source from which our water came from. The water in my school’s reservoirs got finished. The experience was terrible and eventually, we were all sent home until the supply of water was restored. We had five minutes prayer session each time we met for assembly where we prayed for rainfall. In our geography class we were encouraged to plant more trees than to destroy them and were taught that these were some of the problems caused by global warming. Some students got ill, others had heat rushes on their skin due to the excessive heat, body odors and we all faced serious sanitation problems forcing the school authorities including the health department to send us all home. When we were called back to school my classmates and I decided to each bring a tree which we planted on our school property to help in the evaporation process for the future rainfall process. The experienced taught me to appreciate the flow of water in our various homes and caused me to understand some of the trouble and problems these natural disasters such as excessive heat and lack of rainfall causing drought and other social problems that individuals living in other countries face for a long time.
Many countries especially developing countries remain significantly great with impact of natural disaster such as earthquakes, volcanoes, extreme heat, famine, drought, hurricanes, tsunamis, wildfires, etc. This disasters cause about 90 percent of deaths in low and middle-income areas (1) due to the continuous lack and inadequate access to basic amenities such as running water, food, shelter and health care after the disaster strike. The poor even before the disaster strikes already live in conditions which are not very conducive making them vulnerable even before they are hit with natural environmental problems. Whether it is natural or man-made disaster, it caused damage, loss of lives, ecological destruction and major health problems (1). Before a situation may be classified as a disaster, there are not many resources available to handle the that particular situation thus expert extra support and response from outside to that particular area or country. Man-made disaster such as war can have great impact on human lives. There was 13 years of civil war in Liberia from 1990 to 2003, the country suffered an enormous amount of death and disability. It killed more than 200,000 people (3), and about 500,000 people were forced to leave their homes and became internally displaced refugees who had to flee to other countries (1). The UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) who is in charge of protecting the rights of refugees reported 42, 000 Liberians living in the Budumbura Refugee Camp in neighboring Ghana, including 18,000 children and over 4,000 of these children were born in the camp. Their human rights were violated and they had to live their entire lives as refugees (3). Some of the refugees arrived in boats, canoes, helicopters and a few on cars. I remember watching the news and constantly seeing casualties and young children holding guns on the news in Liberia. One of my Liberian friend mentioned that another way to survive was to join the civil war movement and fight for that particular group, in that sense they could be able to arm and protect themselves. As he mentioned, it was just another way to survive. Perch my Liberian friend suffered cuts and a gunshot in his arm but he is now married to a Ghanaian woman, with two beautiful children. It is possible that, his initial plan wasn’t to work as a car mechanic but situation in which he found himself made him decide to do and get the best out of his life in Ghana. A lot of people who suffer from such a disaster do not always have it as Perch had; they sometimes die and mostly have psychological problems. To help the refugees who came to settle in the Buduburam Refugee Camp in Ghana, they created the Liberian Dance Troupe project which uses theatre and dance to maintain Liberian culture, and to teach the youth within the camp about HIV/AIDS, teen pregnancy and drug abuse. Adult leaders were able to train over 100 children and youth in theatre, the arts, oral and written literature, dance and music. Youth who receive cultural training carry out weekly cultural training seminars in primary schools located in the camp which have provided support to over 1000 children (3). This project has also enhanced the literacy skills of young members of the LDT and supports their psychosocial rehabilitation. They are able to raise awareness about important health and social issues while the youth are encouraged to participate in this project to build their self-confidence, acquire dignity and develop renewed sense of identity and to continue with practicing their culture even a different community and not their own country (3).
Drought another serious disaster which is mainly caused by lack of precipitation, a natural climate cycle thus causing an extended dry period (2). Drought leads to serious shortage in water and food. Shortage of water leads to shortage of food, no water to cultivate and harvest food crops to eat. In 2005, Niger suffered an agricultural problem locust outbreak and drought which lead to famine. The drought affected more than 3.6 million people and put them at risk of starvation (4) thus they seek international aid for food.
Natural and man-made disasters are all major problem to our health and to the entire environment in which we live in. It is indeed true that most of the natural disasters, we as human can not always prevent them but as little as we can such as using more green products can also help in taking little steps and trying to be rational on issues to prevent conflicts can go a long way in saving life and preventing some man-made disaster as wars. I know its not as easy as it sounds but as an African, I know in a developing country such as Ghana when there is conflicts which can spark to a major problem, the governments do not only handle the issue themselves but involves the local leaders who are mostly opinion leaders in that particular region. Involving these opion leaders are able help solve regional conflicts for example which goes a long way because they eventually after a long process compromise and then resolve the issue. It makes these opinion leaders feel important and also they serve as a better channel for the group who are dissatisfied in sometimes very minute misundersatnding. The culture of a group of people are to be respected when trying to help and bring peace among people in a particular palce or even a country. I think its best for local leader and government in most developing countries to give basic education to its people, in doing that, certain basic things that contribute to misunderstanding may be solved by knowing the facts and practicing to live a better and healthy life styles. Education goes a long way because it does not only expalin basic concepts but goes a long way by helping people become more rational on issues and open minded on things they might have not thought of and due to past expereinces they might learn to tale some approaches that other countries took to make their nation a better one. Wars pull us back especially with the health sector because it spoils a nation rather than fixes the nations. Since we all want to move forward in having better life styles and increasing our life span its important to discourage any man-made disaster and try not to pull back in increasing factors that would contribute to natural disater. There is great impact on disasters, nations suffers when thre is one, so we must all move forward by not encouraging any form of disaster among ourselves and in our various countries.




References

Skolnik R. Natural Disaster and Complex Humanitarian Emergencies. Essentials of Global Health. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bertlett Publishers; 2008: 247-262.

World Health Organization, 2009. Retrieved
http://www.who.int/hac/techguidance/ems/drought/en/

Liberian Trauma Recovery and Cultural Awareness, 2009. Retrieved
http://www.warchild.org/projects/WC_Canada/Liberia_Ghana/liberia_ghana.html

Niger, country, African: History, 2009. Retrieved
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/world/A0860001.html