Pandemic planning – a win for everyone
There were so many titles that I wanted to give this paper just to try and make sure that it would get the widest readership! It flows from months of research into, and work related to, pandemic planning throughout which I have developed an increasing sense of frustration. Frustration because, globally, we are squandering the potential for huge improvements in productivity, personal health and general quality of life. Even more frustrating is the absolute fact that these benefits can be achieved at very low cost. Much has been written about pandemic planning and the vast majority has been badged and directed towards pandemic influenza. My earlier papers (see links below) on this topic provide considerable planning guidelines as do numbers of other learned works, but the more I researched the issues the more I came to realise that we are missing a golden opportunity. Forget Avian ‘Flu, forget pandemics – every country suffers multiple epidemics every year and anything that we can do to minimise the impact of these will result in the benefits that I enumerated in my previous articles. There are masses of statistics available as to lost work days, hospital presentations, health costs, etc, relating to various health issues. If one looks at a simple one – seasonal ‘flu – in Australia the results show huge impacts: * Each year in Australia influenza causes the death of some 1,500 people; Add to this the impact of gastric outbreaks, common colds, ‘childhood diseases’, and the overall impact is staggering. Note, too, that this maps globally with the impact actually being far worse in countries with poorer health services. Now it happens that virtually all of the early measures proposed to lessen the impact of pandemic influenza are equally applicable to almost all epidemic diseases. Probably the first and easiest measure relates to personal and workplace hygiene. Virtually all communicable diseases are at least partially transmitted through contact. Indeed the potential for reducing disease spread may increase for such things as gastric ‘bugs’ which are almost exclusively distributed through infected surface contact. So, all of the personal and workplace hygiene measures espoused for use during a pandemic (including practises to ensure that surfaces – door handles, filing cabinets, desktops, telephones, etc - are kept free from germs) will assist in the containment of the majority of communicable diseases. If we then add in such measures as: * Responsible sickness behaviour and management – i.e. people remain at home, or are sent home, when they are ill; then the potential to reduce absenteeism (and therefore maintain the highest possible productivity levels), improve the health of individuals, reduce the impact on the health system and generally improve quality of life rises dramatically. This is business continuity management at its most proactive. This begs the question, “Why are not all organisations adopting these measures NOW?” Even more importantly, why are not all governments actively promoting these practises? In Australia, considerable material has been produced – virtually all badged for pandemic influenza - but, unfortunately, there has been little active distribution, particularly at the level of the general public. There seems to be a fear in some quarters that it may spark a panic. Compare this with the massive anti-terrorism programme of a few years ago. There is a golden opportunity and we should be seizing it now: review all the material that has been produced and rebadge it as ‘Let’s Make Australia a Healthy Country’, or some such attention grabbing, BUT ABSOLUTELY TRUE, title. There will be an immediate and on-going productivity return, as well as greatly improving business resilience if/when any sort of pandemic occurs. Indeed waiting until a pandemic occurs to start an education campaign is courting disaster as people really will panic at that time. NOW is the time to act and I challenge all governments to treat their populations as intelligent people who can be easily educated to realise the potential benefits to themselves, their businesses and to society as a whole. Author: Previous Continuity Central articles by Leslie:
•Date: 16th March 2007• Region: Australia/World •Type: Article •Topic: Pandemic plan. |
