During any sort of disaster, whether it be natural or man-made, nurses have proven to be the backbone of their communities and aiding in recovery. Disaster management is crucial in all communities, and follows a basic framework of mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. Nurses play roles and have responsibilities in each of these steps of disaster management. Mitigation involves minimizing the effects of a disaster, which may include preventative measures and education regarding disaster management. Nurses’ part in this role is staying up to date with their skills and knowledge of first aid, basic life support, educating patients, risk assessments and screenings, and more. The preparedness phase involves forming a disaster plan, and in this phase nurses can participate and conduct skills training regarding what to do during an emergency. Disaster response involves nurses acting as first responders to treat and care for individuals at risk in the community. This is where the nursing skills take place. Assessments, communication, using the nursing process to prioritize patients and triage them. Nurses must be competent with their skills in order to provide effective and quality care to those in desperate need, hence the preparedness and mitigation phases. Afterwards, there is the recovery phase in which the nurse can help work with other organizations by assessing at-risk individuals who may need more care and referring them.  Regardless of the type, location, extent of the disaster, nurses play a key role in helping their communities in the event of a disaster.  

When thinking about the Provision 2 and Provision 5 of the ANA Nursing Code of Ethics in context of a disaster, I become very conflicted. Provision 2 states the nurse’s primary responsibility is the patient, yet Provision 5 states that the nurse owes the same duty to themselves. Similar to nurses working in the clinical setting, nurses cannot provide adequate care to patients if they do not provide care to themselves too. I think this similar principle can be applied to disaster nursing, to an extent. Nurses have to make sure they are safe, fit, and able to care for others during an emergency. So yes, the priority for the nurse is to care for their patients during a disaster, but they cannot do that effectively if they are not caring for themselves. And in emergencies, nurses have to be on their A game – because lives literally depend on them!