Emergency Preparedness and Response free essay sample

There is an ongoing debate however, as to what level of contribution local, state, and federal agency’s feel is an appropriate level of ongoing public health investments. A bioterrorism event will emphasize existing doubts in the delivery of the public health system. The critical choice for public health authorities at the local, state, and federal is not to decide where the power to protect the public health lies but rather where the leadership to respond to a bioterrorism event will originate. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is assigned the duty of monitoring, assessing, and following up on people’s health during a bioterrorist attack they are responsible for ensuring the safety of workers responding to an incident, that the food supply is safe, and providing medical, public health, and mental/behavioral health advice. HHS has primary responsibility for federal public health and medical response in a bioterrorist incident because response and recovery efforts will rely on public health and medical emergency response. We will write a custom essay sample on Emergency Preparedness and Response or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The Assistant Secretary for Public Health Emergency Preparedness will coordinate responses with DHS and other federal and state agencies from the Secretary’s Operations Center. HHS will coordinate the federal public health and medical response to a bioterror attack. The basic functions of the federal, state, and local level during an Anthrax bioterrorism event are first and foremost is to protect the health, safety, and general welfare of the public and their response should be delivered in a comprehensive and all-encompassing manner. This includes virtually any governmental action needed to control the threat to the population. Therefore, in order to fulfill that responsibility to ensure the publics health state public health authorities could (as they have in the past) temporarily constrain certain civil liberties. They can require private sector participation in public health objectives, shut down potentially harmful industries, destroy contaminated property, deport or prevent the entry of individuals who may infect others, ration supplies, and control the flow of information (Hodge, 2002). During emergencies, the importance of our country’s communications systems becomes clear. These communications systems include the wire line and wireless telephone networks, broadcast and cable television, radio, Public Safety Land Mobile Radio, satellite systems and increasingly the Internet. For example, in an emergency, we may dial 911, call our family members to make sure they are safe, and turn on our televisions and radios to get breaking news and important updates (FCC, 2012). For communication to be effectual there has to be specific strategies in place that will insure that everyone has an opportunity to voice their concerns and soliciting community-based input from individuals and organizations. Some of the specific strategies or activities according to Turnock will vary from community to community but will generally include hearings, dialogues, discussion forums, meetings, and collaborative planning sessions. The specific roles and authority of community participants should be clarified so that the process is not perceived as one driven largely by the health agency and so-called experts (p. 114). On May 22, 2012, employees and volunteers at the Quad-Cities Processing amp; Distribution Facility in Rock Island County, Illinois, participated in a full-scale bioterrorism exercise to prepare first responders for biological attacks. As with any post office, hundreds of thousands of letters are processed daily. The steps that Rock Island County took to insure the safety and well-being of not only the employees but also the greater public was to first get a head count off all the affected employees, then they put those individuals through decontamination then receive their antibiotics. According to the article, firefighters with hoses then pretended to spray down volunteers, who took real showers in MABAS vehicles. Volunteers were checked for vital signs before boarding a bus and being taken to a medical area where they would receive their medications. In a real situation, the medications would be taken from the national stockpile. There is still room for improvement in my opinion; there are no clear defined responsibilities or roles for the employees. What is the chain of command, who will contact the Center for Disease Control, or verify contamination and treat those infected? While Illinois is prepared on basic level to treat a small-contained outbreak from an anthrax attack, they still have a long way to go to make sure that all the citizens of Illinois understand their responsibilities and obligations to ensure containment, and its survival. Anthrax is an acute infectious disease caused by the spore-forming bacterium Bacillus anthracis the spores can be used as a bioterrorist weapon, as was the case in 2001, when Bacillus anthracis spores had been intentionally distributed through the postal system, causing 22 cases of anthrax, including 5 deaths. One death caused by a terrorist attack is unacceptable and can be prevented as long as the proper strategies, protocols and procedures are followed to protect the American citizens on a local, state, and federal level. Reference: Federal Communication Commission (2012).