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Are You Ready?

Disasters Are Not Equal

The frequency of disasters in Canada is on the rise and the threat of a large-scale health emergency is real. Currently, there is a threat of the H5N1 strain of the avian flu, and this has the potential of spreading quickly around the world. Canada is also subject to the full array of natural disasters, all of which could become health emergencies. The reality is that Canadians will have to deal with and react to disasters in the future. There will be large numbers of people affected by disease, suffering and socio-economic dislocation.

While disasters may affect everyone, high-risk populations are particularly hard hit by disasters. And the numbers are large. Today approximately 11.7% of children live in poverty and more than 3.9 million Canadians live with disabilities. It has never been more urgent for your organization to prepare for an emergency to ensure that you can continue to provide services to your clients.

How You Can Help

There are many different ways your organization can contribute to an emergency response. Whether its providing space, people or tools, every organization has unique capacities which are vital in times of emergency. To see where your organization might fit, take a look at this chart.

We encourage all voluntary organizations to prepare for health emergencies and to examine ways they can be involved in the community response.

Before an emergency, organizations should:

• Learn about the risks that affect their community and would emerge during an emergency.
• Develop an emergency plan that will safeguard their clients, volunteers and staff and that allows their organization to maintain their essential services.
• Train their team on exercising your emergency plan.
• Identify the types of services they could offer during a health emergency, beyond their core services.

During an emergency, organizations can contribute in a variety of ways:

• Volunteer management: volunteers are fundamental during a health emergency; however, they need to be effectively trained and managed for any response to be successful.
• Dissemination of vital information: organizations can assist in disseminating information pertaining to the health emergency at hand through their own networks. They can specifically target groups of people who may have special needs (i.e. various cultural groups) or with who they have a rapport.
• Emotional care & support: Many organizations can take part in these activities, supporting community members to help them get through the emergency.
• Home care: This includes visiting people in their homes to ensure they are coping well and may include delivering necessities to them.
• Special Capacities: Most voluntary organizations have capacities that are unique and might be highly valuable in an emergency. The key is to identify what these capacities are and how they can be put to best use.

Certain organizations may further be able to contribute to providing and managing emergency shelters, handling the transportation of basic supplies and providing First Aid, Community Health Care and Control of Disease Transmission. These tasks all require a high degree of specialization limiting the number of organizations that can participate.

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