In the event of a disaster the first step is to be calm. As a nurse it is your responsibility to be prepared for a man-made or natural disaster at all times. Through emergency preparedness drills and evacuation planning you should be ready to respond to a disaster at any time. The goal of response is to save lives without preventing any further injury or damage. The primary job of the nurse is to triage and help as many people as you can without putting your life or the lives of others at risk. You should be able to recognize who needs immediate care, who can wait to get care, and who even with care has little chance of survival. As a nurse you are responsible to assess the care needs of the community prior to, during, and after a disaster.
The two different ethical codes in the context of natural and/or man-made disaster contradict each other, but also work together in my opinion. It is the nurse’s duty to provide care, but not at the risk of their own life. It is not expected that the nurse will put their own life on the line to provide care to a patient. If there is no imminent threat to the nurse’s life, that is when provision 2 comes into play and the nurse should focus on the needs of the patient. Neither provision is more important than the other and both should be considered when providing care to your patients. In the case of a natural disaster or man-made disaster, a nurse is not going to be expected to put there lives at risk, nor will they be punished for not risking their life.
