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Pillars of Public Safety

2010 Jan 15 Posted by Joseph Pascarella

As the shock wears off on what may be the worst disaster in recorded history to strike the Western Hemisphere in terms of loss of human life, the Public Safety infrastructure in Haiti is currently in shambles.

There are two Pillars of Public Safety, Health and Security. The primary mission and objective of Public Safety, universally, is to prevent loss of life. In terms of Health, many hospitals have collapsed and there are dead bodies strewn about the streets and countless victims in dire need of medical attention. In terms of Security, early reports indicated that the National Police of Haiti virtually disappeared during the disaster and the main prison of Haiti collapsed, allowing incarcerated criminals to escape amongst the chaos, adding to an already dangerous and ominious environment for Public Safety personnel.

The most pressing issue, at the moment, is to secure the operations of these two Pillars. Ironically, Health workers need Security, however, there is very little in terms of Security infrastructure. Other pressing issues include recovery and mitigation. For example, should the focus be on evacuation efforts that clog up tattered transportation infrastructure, or should the focus be on rescuing potentially trapped victims in which the window of survival is limited? These are very serious Public Safety challenges.

Stay safe.

Joe Pascarella

January 15, 2010 | Filed under: Uncategorized
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3 Responses to “Pillars of Public Safety”

Scot Reeves, RN, MS Says:

Dr. Joe,
I just couldn’t stay away from commenting on the Pillar of Health Care in Public Safety. I have experienced the umbrella of protection of Safety during my time as a Paramedic and responding to accident scenes, some victims with libatious encouragement become uncontrollable and interfere in the duties of a Paramedic. This week I am updating our Emergency Preparedness Manual and this blog has fit right in to some of my developed pillars of Health Care Human Needs in Public Safety. From a Healthcare perspective and using Maslow’s basic concepts and my Nursing knowledge, have developed basic survival daily living needs for maintaining health and avoiding disease:
>Hygiene-(disease prevention)
>Waste-(disposal of medical and personal-including contamination of death and disease)
>Water/Food provisions
>Safety-(physical, electronics, possessions); >Sheltering-(environmental and elemental safety)
>Companionship and dealing with PTSD/Stress-family separation

Now imagine what the population of Haiti is experiencing; they are deprived of all of these which does make this a true catastrophic medical event.

Scot

January 15th, 2010 at 3:51 pm

Stephen Ward Says:

I have been watching the news on Wood TV 8 out of Grand Rapids, Michigan and the horrifying sight in Haiti is really bad. I have noticed that there is not public safety officials any where in sight and to control the chaos, the Military has to be called in to help with the outrage that is going on in Haiti right now.

January 19th, 2010 at 5:38 pm

Joe Pascarella Says:

Stephen,

Thanks for the comment. Public safety right now is non-existent.

Joe

January 20th, 2010 at 2:01 pm

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