Peculiarities of providing care in various emergencies

Abstract

Air crashes

Attention is focused on providing care to the relatives (identifying the bodies of the perished, talking to investigators, filling out the requisite documentation, etc.), resolving social issues (organizing funerals, informing various services of what had happened, etc.).

Fires

Special attention is paid to the victims with burns at the inpatient facilities of hospitals.

Terrorist acts

Provision of care depends on the duration of the emergency and the number of people involved; in the case of a continual stress, in the phase of isolation the medical-psychological care is provided to victims’ relatives. At later stages–it is provided to the victims and their relatives.

Natural disasters

Are of a special nature, as they are always sudden and there exists a threat that a great number of people may become victims.

Organizational measures in the acute period of an emergency:

– coordinating the work of specialists of the local, regional and federal level;

– interacting with non-governmental organizations;

– setting up a 24-hour “hotline” service (“HL”) on the basis of a medical institution;

– deploying facilities for providing care to victims, their relatives, and to “secondary victims”.

Principles of medical-psychological care:

– urgent care must be provided jointly with psychiatrists/psychotherapists at the places, where the victims are located;

– individuals with the most severe stress reactions must be identified and observed by psychiatrists/psychotherapists;

– appropriate and prompt intervention should be made to relieve acute stress disorders;

– therapeutic interventions should not be a hindrance to victims’ participation in the urgent evacuation and interrogation expedients as well as completing social tasks.

Disclosure of interest

The author has not supplied his declaration of competing interest.