Development of a disaster preparedness tool kit for nursing and midwifery : report on a WHO meeting, Coleraine, United Kingdom 20-21 August 1999

Abstract

As front-line health professionals, nurses and midwives can make an important contribution during and following disasters, but little training material on disaster preparedness is available to them. A WHO meeting discussed possibilities for a WHO initiative to develop a tool kit to fill this gap. Fifteen experts from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Italy, Slovenia, Sweden, Turkey and the United Kingdom, with a variety of experience in disaster relief nursing, participated in the meeting, along with representatives from the WHO European programmes for emergency preparedness, nuclear emergency response, and nursing and midwifery. A strategic framework was developed that draws on common themes of the three different phases of disasters and considers the perspectives of international, national and local actors in disaster relief. A list of content areas for the tool kit were identified, and the participants agreed to act as an advisory group for its development