Laura Quick
Country: Canada
Background - Bachelor of Science
Research Project: A multi-agency perspective on emergency preparedness and response from the 2004 Asian Tsunami in Aceh, Indonesia
Introduction: With an increase in the number of natural disasters occurring worldwide, and an increase in the number of acting agencies in disaster relief, an integrated and coordinated response is now more important than ever. Whether agencies can provide relief while “doing no harm” is dependant on their ability to adapt to the local situation, revise their interventions from previous experience and adapt their relief programmes and procedures accordingly. The Asian Tsunami that hit the Asia-Pacific region on December 26th 2004 shook the world and became a major turning point for reforming disaster relief and management.
Research Objectives: This case study examines emergency preparedness and response in the context of local disease control from the perspective of aid workers in Aceh Indonesia following the tsunami disaster of 2004. Through looking at the broader organisational issues from the lens of healthcare as well as more specific health related issues, how well these lessons have been incorporated into current programmatic procedures and processes was studied and potential strategies to improve disaster preparedness and relief efforts were then sought.
Design: Qualitative study using key informant interviews.
Methods: Key informants from various international medical aid agencies were sampled purposively. Once several participants had been recruited snowball sampling was initiated. Interviews were recorded for clarity and data collected was later analysed using thematic analysis.
Results: The study found that where preparedness plans were available their usefulness was questionable. Agencies have made some changes to their programmes by ensuring that capacity building is now included as early on in the response as possible and that medical teams sent into the field are multi-disciplinary. Barriers identified were similar to those in the immediate post-tsunami reports such and included a misallocation of medical personnel, inappropriate aid and difficulty adapting their programmes to the local context. Reactions concerning the cluster approach and how well it has improved response effectiveness were mixed.
Conclusion: Though strides have been made in attempting to solve some of the recurrent issues, as seen by the health response to the tsunami and similar disasters in the five years that have passed there are still many changes yet to be made. Some issues addressed in post-disaster reports five years ago are still being identified as problems in current relief efforts. In particular, the question of the why the cluster approach has done little to manage inappropriate aid in the past several years was raised. Though this study looked at the experiences of a limited number of representatives, future relief efforts could be improved by ensuring preparedness measures are integrated into programmes themselves rather than imposed onto them, and by better preparing medical personnel to deal with the local environment. On a broader international level, humanitarian relief could be improved by the use of a coordinating body implemented through the cluster approach or by national governments to filter inappropriate aid.
Keywords: Aid, humanitarian; Primary health care; local disease control; disaster preparedness and response; Aceh; Indonesia; preparedness
(Word Count: 12, 456 including citations)