Page 58 - Human Rights

Faculty of Nursing
Adult care Nursing Department

Ebola provokes high levels of fear in affected communities and poses a serious risk of infection to

staff where they do not use correct infection control precautions and adequate barrier nursing

procedures. This underlines the need to provide both detailed information and protective
strategies to health workers as well as information to the community.

2.8.6 Nurses and natural disasters

The tsunami in south and southeast Asia of 26 December 2004 and the hurricane that caused
great damage to the city of New Orleans and the surrounding region of southern USA in August

2005 both illustrated the devastating impact of natural disasters on communities and individual

well-being. Situations such as these also served to highlight the interplay of human rights and

government policy in the context of humanitarian crises including discrimination in the provision
of emergency health care to victims of natural disasters.

These situations impact on the role, capacity and responsibility of nurses who are called on to join

the response to disaster.

Nurses working on the ground are able to provide care but also to provide information to central
disaster management teams.

Health care and other emergency relief should be based on human rights principles: it should be

available, adequate, acceptable and of good quality.

It should be provided in a non-discriminatory way.

2.9 Migration and asylum

2.9.1 Nurses, refugees and asylum seekers

55 Academic Year 2025/2026