Role of community health nurse in earthquake affected areas

The role of Community Health Nurses (CHNs) outside the traditional hospital setting is meant to provide and promote the health care needs of the community. Such nurses can play a substantial role in the community setting including emergencies like disasters. This became evident after the earthquake of October 8, 2005 in Pakistan. The objective was to address the issues, faced by primary healthcare providers working in earthquake-affected areas focusing on participatory approach. The experience of the interventions done by CHN by a guided frame work (assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation components) is described. Issues identified by CHN included: lack of training of health care providers, lack of collaboration, communication between the medical and management staff due to poor infrastructure of the healthcare facilities. The interventions were carried out, utilizing existing resources. Efforts were directed to build capacity of health care providers at grass root level to fill in gaps of health care delivery system for sustainable change. Overall, working in the earthquake affected areas is challenging. Health leadership should foresee role of CHN in emergencies where quality healthcare interventions are essential.