On October 13, International Disaster Preparedness Day, WHO Asia launches it’s first ever social media driven campaign, with the aim of engaging 1 million people in the issue of safe hospitals in disasters. The effort is spearheaded by a Facebook reaction test application and a simple message: disasters destroy in seconds – WHO needs you to react fast. The app invites people to test how quickly they respond and to challenge friends to beat their time. Each reaction counts towards building the wave of public support needed to push decision-makers in to making hospitals safe. This, for WHO novel approach, is also a first step towards social media driven disaster preparedness and response communication.
South-East Asia regularly faces some of the world’s worst natural disasters -over the last decade, more than half a million people have died in devastating floods, cyclones, earthquakes, and tsunamis. Health facilities provide lifesaving services in the aftermath of these disasters, yet they often collapse or fail when most needed. WHO is working to ensure health facilities are build to withstand emergencies, have contingency plans in place and that staff are trained to help people under post-disaster conditions. This will save thousands of lives. Last year, governments officially committed to ensuring health facilities, old or new, are made safe from disasters. With the help of public support, WHO now seeks to push decision-makers and the hospital industry in to taking concrete action to prevent future, needless loss of life.
To help make our hospitals safe, react at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Making-Our-Hospitals-Safe-from-Disasters/145906808779351?v=app_118205574899590
Not on Facebook? Go to campaign site: http://apps.who.int/clickabrick/
For more about safe hospitals: http://www.searo.who.int/en/Section1257/Section2263/Section2519/Section2520.htm
Hat tip to Mari Tikkanen, www.m4id.fi
