Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T10:13:43.617Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Disaster Preparedness in Nigeria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2012

Joseph A. Shyngle
Affiliation:
Doctor J.A. Shyngle died in June 1981, soon after his presentation of this paper at the Second World Congress of Emergency and Disaster Medicine.
Joseph O. A. Sodipo
Affiliation:
From the Departments of Surgery (J.A.S.) and Anaesthesiology (J.O.A.S.), Lagos University Hospital, P.M.B. 12003, Lagos, Nigeria.

Extract

The River Ogunpa flood disaster was an event which created difficulties from every conceivable angle and provided many of the problems to be experienced in disaster management generally. It should be emphasized that every state hospital should have a disaster plan so that one could assume that it is adequately prepared for major accidents. Some of the teaching hospitals in Nigeria have disaster plans. However, the mere presence of a paper plan did not guarantee that it was up to date, comprehensive and understood by all staff concerned, in some of the major disasters which recently occurred in Nigeria. This article highlights some of the major natural and man-made disasters in our country, the magnitude of the damage done, factors affecting the response of the nation to the disasters, as well as some of the major deficiencies in our disaster plans.

Type
Part III: International Organizations - Planning - Disaster Events
Copyright
Copyright © World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Jones, J. Community preparedness — Seminar on natural disaster and community welfare. James Cook University of North Queensland, 3 December 1977,5456.Google Scholar
2. Prepared fora disaster? Brit Med 13:723,1975.Google Scholar
3. Savage, PEA. Disaster planning — A majoraccidem exercise. Brit Med J 4:168171,1970.Google Scholar
4. Shyngle, JA. Road trarffic accidents in Nigeria. Proceedings of the American Association for Automobile Medicine 22nd Conference and International Association for Accident Traffic Medicine in Oslo, June 1979,3643, Volume 1.Google Scholar
5. Sodipo, JOA. Problems associated with the resuscitation of the victims of flood: Proceedingsof the International Conference on Disaster Medicine on Flood. Monaco, April 1979.Google Scholar