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GENEVA: The World Health
Organization and UNICEF have called on governments to strengthen risk
reduction measures in four key areas so that health and education
systems are able to cope with disasters, including the risks from
climate change. These are:
• Build school and health infrastructure according to disaster
resilience standards;
• Conduct assessment of the safety of hospitals and schools and take
remedial action to make them safer;
• Ensure all hospitals and schools implement emergency and disaster
preparedness programmes, including staff training and exercises;
• Educate, train and involve communities in disaster risk reduction;
WHO and UNICEF highlighted these issues during the Global Platform for
Disaster Risk Reduction, a key gathering of the world's risk reduction
community organized by the United Nations International Strategy for
Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) in Geneva. The High Level Panel on Safe
Schools and Hospitals, jointly organized by UNICEF, UNESCO, WHO and
World Bank, covered the experience of France, Mexico, Philippines and
Tajikistan in making hospitals and schools safer from disasters and
emphasized the vital role that scientific evidence plays.
Disasters have a major health, educational, economic, physical, and
psychosocial impact on the most vulnerable, notably children, women and
aged persons. Disasters can destroy human lives and damage hospital and
school infrastructures, disrupt educational cycles, exacerbate poverty,
force children to drop out of school, and affect the resiliency of
communities.
The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, which caused some 240,000 deaths in Asian
and African countries, raised global awareness about the importance of
disaster risk reduction and emergency preparedness.
The massive earthquake that struck China's Sichuan Province in 2008 left
88,000 people dead or missing 400,000 injured, and 11,000 hospitals
damaged or destroyed. Over 12,000 schools or 40 per cent of all schools
in Sichuan were damaged, resulting in thousands of children being killed
or injured. These events highlight growing concern over the effects of
disasters on education and health. Risk reduction is imperative for both
education and for health. It may be possible to build better after a
disaster, but it is not possible to replace lost lives or to restore
health completely.
Children are among the most at risk and around 175,000 children annually
will be affected by disasters. In recent years, large numbers of schools
have been destroyed by disasters resulting in the loss of lives of
children and the stalling of access to education. Children also suffer
from the psychosocial effects of disasters, thus, hindering children's
opportunities. Education protects lives and safeguards development
gains.
"The destruction and carnage inflicted on hospitals, schools, and the
people who use them are senseless losses that could have been prevented
in many cases," said Dr Eric Laroche, WHO's Assistant Director-General
for Health Action in Crises. "Such tragedies can be avoided or reduced
if governments adopt disaster risk reduction strategies aimed at
protecting people's health. One prime way of doing this is making
hospitals safer by enforcing and implementing building codes to ensure
quality construction, training staff to be prepared for emergencies and
assessing existing health facilities to learn what, if any,
vulnerabilities they may have."
The health sector and partners are focusing on the protection of health
facilities, health workers and patients from disasters during the
2008-2009 World Disaster Reduction Campaign for making Hospitals Safe
from Disasters. Mexico has demonstrated that it is possible to make
hospitals safer by applying a Hospital Safety Index to hundreds of
hospitals and then making them more resilient and better prepared to
respond to emergencies and disasters.
"The school must be a safe place that protects children and defends
their right to education," said Louis-Georges Arsenault, UNICEF's
Director of the Office of Emergency Programmes. "However, children can
also serve as powerful protagonists for change. The integration of
disaster risk reduction into the school curriculum equips children with
knowledge of the risks, and what actions can be taken to mitigate the
risks. Education is therefore an important aspect of risk reduction. Not
only is it a child's right, but education also protects lives and
safeguard development gains."
UNICEF and WHO are active members of the UNISDR system and advocate
globally for the protection of schools and hospitals from disasters. The
current and previous biennial World Disaster Reduction campaigns
organized by UNISDR have been devoted to "Disaster risk reduction begins
at schools" (2006-2007) and "Hospitals Safe from Disasters" (2008-2009).
WHO is also devoting its 2009 World Health Day to the theme "Save lives.
Make hospitals safe in emergencies." (PR). |
