CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION Background of the Study The World Disasters Report 2007 confirmed a 60% increase in the occurrence of disasters in the last decade (1997–2006) compared to the previous decade.1 The number of reported deaths associated with disasters increased from 600,000 to more than 1.2 million while disasters are increasing in frequency, intensity and impact due to increasing population pressure, climatic change, and new and re-emerging communicable diseases.( Fritsch, 2011) at the same time, the number of people affected rose from 230 million to 270 million — a 17% increase. No nation, region, community, or individual is immune to the potential devastations of a disaster (Mireile Kingma, 2010 in Powers & Daily, 2010). Fritsch (2011), Regional Adviser for Nursing, noted that the Asia Pacific region is vulnerable to disasters and crises. Two billion people are at risk of crisis conditions, more than 3 million people in the region were killed in natural disasters in the past 20 years and 800 million were adversely affected. Challenges facing many communities include chronic under-investment, poor infrastructure, lack of staff, inadequate finance, inequitable distribution, and inefficient use of resources.

The South-East Asia Region accounted for approximately 44% of all disasters globally in the past decade, and 62% of all deaths due to natural disasters. One of the main problems of emergencies and disasters is its impact on health care services—overloaded facilities, lack of supplies, overworked staff due to no back-up, unorganized response, and multiple health issues requiring facility or public health interventions (WHO, 2012).

In Philippines, Eastern Visayas was a hard-hit of historical super-typhoon Yolanda in November 2013.The Philippine National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (PNDRRMC) reported that at the peak of the event 6,283 people died. WHO (2014) reported 12,544 injuries and 1,186 persons were missing. The DOH (2014) reported that figures ticked higher with 11,904 more deaths after Yolanda, from January to September 2014 in whole Eastern Visayasdue to diseases and other causes. (Geronimo, 2014, in Riel, 2016). According to World Health Organization findings, an estimated 800,000 Yolanda victims have suffered mental health effects over the past year and that a tenth of those victims need continuing medication and support, including those suffering from post-traumatic disorder, depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia. The WHO has been training community workers to offset the lack of professionals who can detect mental health conditions and provide support (Aseo, 2014). Since the typhoon struck, WHO-led health recovery operations have been focused in the following four thematic areas as set out in the Strategic Response Plan: (1) TREAT: Address the immediate health needs of the affected especially for obstetric and neonatal care, mental health and psychosocial support, and the care of the deceased and bereaved;(2) PREVENT: Strengthen the alert and surveillance capability to address public health threats and inform the provision of health care including immunization and outbreak response;(3). REBUILD: Establish an equitable basic system of primary and secondary healthcare functions, and access to a tertiary referral system in all areas (including management of victims of gender-based violence) without financial barriers to access for affected populations; and (4) LINK: Strengthen the coordination and integration of health care with other services and clusters including protection issues around mental health and psychosocial support and gender-based violence. Workshops for nurses from South-East Asia Region (WHO, 2012) were conducted dubbed as “Empowerment for disaster preparedness. ”The objectives of the workshop include (1) sharing experiences among nurses from the countries prone to disaster; (2) to master the core competencies of disaster nursing; and (3) to establish a foundation for collaborative networking among nurses.

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