Emergency Plan for Disaster - Thesis Example

This is because, their vital signs display a rapid respiratory rate, and may not be able to verbally respond to EMS, and therefore injuries can go untreated (Alire, 2005). Nevertheless, children are at a higher risk for internal injuries. These reasons make Triage very vital in children (England, 2000). It is usually done before transportation and patients are categorized by the use of printed tags or colored flagging; and Advanced Triage, in this, doctors may decide that some of the seriously injured individuals do not receive advanced care since they are less likely to survive.

Therefore advanced care is often used on patients with less serious injuries (U.S Dept. Transportation Emergency Response Guidebook, 2012). Advanced Triage hence has ethical implications. It is majorly used to divert the limited resources from people with minimal chances of survival to improve the survival of patients most likely to survive (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Building Air Quality, 2000). Color codes are also used in scenes of accidents or disasters (Cravey, 2007).

Some of the colors include: Red (T1) representing those in acute danger and requires immediate treatment and transport to hospitals; Yellow (T2) representing severe injury and requiring constant observation, rapid care, and transport; Green (T3) representing minor injury or no injury and requires treatment when practical and discharge when possible (Blythe, 2007).; Blue, White in USA (T4) representing those with no or small survival chance and requires observation and administration of analgesics if possible; and Black (T5) representing the deceased requiring collection and guarding of bodies and identification when possible (Cumming, 2006 and Brooks, 2003).

Disaster Triage can be affected by language and cultural differences, especially where there is a language barrier and different color meanings to different people (Defense Civil Preparedness Agency, 2000 and Disaster Planning, Preparedness and Recovery for Libraries and Archives, 2000). Language may decrease the chances of survival where the care providers and patients do not understand each other or even where care providers themselves differ in understanding of color codes due to their cultural differences, leading to according to care for the less injured and abandoning the severely injured patients.

There are pediatric issues in children victims of disaster (White House, 1992). This is because children are more vulnerable to disasters due to pediatric issues such as anatomy, physiology, and immunology, as psychotic and developmental issues (Disaster Planning and Recovery, 2000). These issues have been included in disaster planning for incidents of emergency where children are involved (Yoshpe, 2006).