According to the government, a disaster is defined as "a natural or man-made force the destructive impact of which overwhelms a community's ability to meet healthcare demands." The awareness of the limits of emergency response capabilities to the challenge of disasters has increased dramatically over the last few years due to the attacks against the United States by terrorists and the recent natural disasters. The hospitals around the country know that what were once theoretical threats to our safety are now a troubling reality. Not only have natural disasters increased throughout the United States but the surfacing of foreign state-sponsored terrorism, the proliferation of chemical and biological agents, the availability of materials along with scientific weapons expertise and the increases of indiscriminate attacks all point toward a growing threat of an unconventional disaster. It has become quite obvious due to the terrorists attacks in New York on September 11th and the deliberate anthrax contamination of United States postal facilities that there is a critical need to fortify the efforts of hospital disaster preparedness.
People living in the area of the Peotone Illinois hospital or the Manhattan Illinois hospital would like to be assured that their hospitals are prepared for disasters both man-made and natural. Hospitals across this nation are all taking a look at their disaster preparedness by examining their current disaster plans, improving those plans is needed and conducting disaster drills to challenge them and find more areas for improvement. Government agencies, healthcare professionals and public health advocates have looked at ways to determine the best ways to mitigate the potential impact of a disaster with massive casualties or what is known as a mass casualty incident or MCI. These MCI's may involve natural, biological, chemical, radiation, nuclear, or other agents and all have been given considerable attention.
Each type of incident has its own intimidating tasks and are unique with their own issues. Differences between scenarios hold challenging implications for preparedness training and hospitals across the nation are practicing for many different levels of these disasters. The natural disasters across the nation including the hurricanes and tornadoes have different challenges than if the disaster were to be a biothreat. Some of what was seen in New Orleans has been replayed and studied for improvements in the efforts to handle such a disaster.
For those people living near the Momence Illinois hospital they may not be concerned about the disaster relief of a hurricane for themselves. They may be interested in knowing if a tornado were to touch down if the hospital is ready to handle such a disaster. They may also be concerned about other disasters and although the United States will never be able to say that terrorism won't happen again we can prepare for what may happen and the hospitals of the nation along with the agencies in place to help, are doing what they can to prepare.
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