WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION (WHO)
“We hope that the training and research conducted by the Collaborating Centre will provide Indonesia with more evidence and innovative solutions, enabling this high-risk country to better protect its people from disasters.”
Dr Limpakarnjanarat, WHO Representative, Indonesia
Dr Limpakarnjanarat, WHO Representative, Indonesia
Including crisis prevention in development planning
Currently, Indonesia's government has implemented a Disaster Management Law which makes disaster risk reduction compulsory. This has been supported by the World Health Organisation (WHO) which has influenced the government to expand its emergency preparedness and response programs. A National Disaster Management Agency organized by WHO coordinates responses to all disaster by providing affected provinces with risk maps. The centre for Health Crisis Management allocated WHO a collaborating centre for training and research on disaster risk reduction in 2012, and has since become very experienced with emergency risk management.
Engaging with communities
WHO has supported the Ministry of Health to create 9 regional centres across Indonesia which helps ensure immediate health assistance during the time of an emergency disaster. The regional centres were created in order to provide assistance for things such as destroyed infrastructure, disrupted communication and lack of resources. WHO is focusing on disaster prevention and dealing with heavy damage caused by disasters. It has engaged with rural areas in order to provide resilience against natural disasters through the development of community health centres. An example is the government program called Alert Village, a government program supported by the World Health Organisation which promotes healthy living which was introduced in 2006. This program has now developed to teach young people about how to deal with disaster, training them in basic life skills such as first aid, which will help save family and friends during times of disaster.
Other solutions
Before the 2004 Aceh tsunami and earthquake, there was only institutional based care. Today, most districts have primary mental health services which have support from secondary care at district general hospitals. Furthermore, WHO strengthens management and innovations in the health system by supporting implementation of regulations for both public and private provision during the time of a natural disaster. It also improves the capacity of the health care system during a natural disaster as well as emphasising the importance of emergency mitigation through constant vulnerability assessments.
Currently, Indonesia's government has implemented a Disaster Management Law which makes disaster risk reduction compulsory. This has been supported by the World Health Organisation (WHO) which has influenced the government to expand its emergency preparedness and response programs. A National Disaster Management Agency organized by WHO coordinates responses to all disaster by providing affected provinces with risk maps. The centre for Health Crisis Management allocated WHO a collaborating centre for training and research on disaster risk reduction in 2012, and has since become very experienced with emergency risk management.
Engaging with communities
WHO has supported the Ministry of Health to create 9 regional centres across Indonesia which helps ensure immediate health assistance during the time of an emergency disaster. The regional centres were created in order to provide assistance for things such as destroyed infrastructure, disrupted communication and lack of resources. WHO is focusing on disaster prevention and dealing with heavy damage caused by disasters. It has engaged with rural areas in order to provide resilience against natural disasters through the development of community health centres. An example is the government program called Alert Village, a government program supported by the World Health Organisation which promotes healthy living which was introduced in 2006. This program has now developed to teach young people about how to deal with disaster, training them in basic life skills such as first aid, which will help save family and friends during times of disaster.
Other solutions
Before the 2004 Aceh tsunami and earthquake, there was only institutional based care. Today, most districts have primary mental health services which have support from secondary care at district general hospitals. Furthermore, WHO strengthens management and innovations in the health system by supporting implementation of regulations for both public and private provision during the time of a natural disaster. It also improves the capacity of the health care system during a natural disaster as well as emphasising the importance of emergency mitigation through constant vulnerability assessments.
Figure 7,1: This is a table showing the current communicable disease risk in earthquake affected areas created by the World Health Organisation. The key shows that people who are affected by earthquakes in Indonesia are most likely to obtain Dengue Fever and have a very low chance of obtaining malaria. We see from the table that there is a significant chance of obtaining most diseases include typhoid and Hepatitis A and E.
Evaluation:
Both the amount of work and effectiveness of the work done by WHO to potentially improve the problem of plate tectonics in Indonesia pales in comparison to what an organization like Red Cross has achieved. However, the organization has nevertheless been able to provide important resources and information in an attempt to help Indonesia. One of the most important contributions WHO has made is the help it provided to the Ministry of Health to set up 9 regional centres across Indonesia. These centres continue to provide immediate health assistance during times of sudden disaster. However, although these centres provide a relatively high standard of assistance and help, the fact that there are only 9 of them across the whole of Indonesia somewhat limits their usefulness to regional areas. Despite this, the short term help that it provides to the regional areas is excellent. Along with this, the centre also provides sustainable, long term help by repairing damaged infrastructure and disrupted communication so that they can be reused in the future.
The program supported by WHO called Alert Village is also likely to pay dividends in the long term. The fact that the program provides knowledge to young people on how to deal with disasters, training them in basic life skills such as first aid is necessary during the occurrence of an actual life disaster so that they will know how to avoid injury and damage as well as understand how to cope with any losses that they may have to endure. The fact that WHO also provides emergency support to public health care systems during times of disaster is also important in stabilising the lives of the Indonesians in the long term.
The total amount of money contributed by WHO is undisclosed so our criteria of comparing cost in proportion to effectiveness therefore does not apply to this organization. However from the work that they've done, by working and collaborating with the Indonesian government closely, they've produced genuinely positive results. By setting up 9 regional health centres, influencing the government to expand its emergency preparedness and response programs as well as emphasizing the importance of emergency mitigation, WHO's approach to changing the problem of natural disasters in Indonesia is somewhat slow but in the long term, the results that will be produced are more than satisfactory, meaning the efforts of WHO will continue to improve the situation in Indonesia.
The program supported by WHO called Alert Village is also likely to pay dividends in the long term. The fact that the program provides knowledge to young people on how to deal with disasters, training them in basic life skills such as first aid is necessary during the occurrence of an actual life disaster so that they will know how to avoid injury and damage as well as understand how to cope with any losses that they may have to endure. The fact that WHO also provides emergency support to public health care systems during times of disaster is also important in stabilising the lives of the Indonesians in the long term.
The total amount of money contributed by WHO is undisclosed so our criteria of comparing cost in proportion to effectiveness therefore does not apply to this organization. However from the work that they've done, by working and collaborating with the Indonesian government closely, they've produced genuinely positive results. By setting up 9 regional health centres, influencing the government to expand its emergency preparedness and response programs as well as emphasizing the importance of emergency mitigation, WHO's approach to changing the problem of natural disasters in Indonesia is somewhat slow but in the long term, the results that will be produced are more than satisfactory, meaning the efforts of WHO will continue to improve the situation in Indonesia.