We are fortunate in Ohio because large-scale disasters do not happen here often. In fact, Ohio ranks 29th in the country in terms of what it has spent on natural disasters. Yet we are all aware that tornadoes can touch down in our area.
Does your family have a plan in place in the event of a potential disaster? If you need to leave your home due to events like severe weather, flooding, or power outages, there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to return right away. A complete state of preparedness involves more than house-proofing or rehearsing an evacuation plan. One key area of preparation we should take into consideration is medication.
Make medication planning a must.
A good beginning is to create a list of the medicines you and your family members take. To complete this essential To-Do item: add in a visit to your MD, top up your emergency medical kit with copies of prescriptions and the prescriptions themselves, keep medications current, and add paper copies of your electronic login information.
Remember, some conditions and the medications that go along with them–for instance, diabetes and insulin medication–require special care. More detailed preparedness information appears below.
Medical, Vital Paperwork Disaster Preparation
By Elyse Umlauf-Garneau
In recent years, natural disasters – wildfires, hurricanes, and blizzards — seemingly are getting more powerful and having a greater long-term impact.
Every September, the United States brings attention to year-round personal and community preparedness for disasters, disease outbreaks, and human-caused emergencies.
Though most are familiar with preparations for an evacuation – getting the house ready, knowing evacuation routes, finding shelter, and so forth – perhaps less attention is paid to personal and health readiness and preparing for long-term effects of a disaster.
The Centers for Disease Control provides some guidance that suggests considering more than the few days or weeks after a disaster and outlines the steps for long-term survival and recovery.
Give special attention to two areas – medication and paperwork – in case you’re not able to return home after a few days or ever.
Planning for medications for day-to-day survival should be a priority, for example.
Here are five tips:
- Medication lists. Keep a list of all your medications and the dosages in your emergency kit and have the phone numbers for your doctors and pharmacies.
- Communicate a plan. Talk to your doctor about what to do if you run out of a medication during an emergency.
- Keep a record. Make copies of current prescriptions and keep them in your emergency kit. Also, scan and email yourself copies of prescriptions or save them in the cloud. If you can’t reach your regular doctor or your usual pharmacy is not open, this written proof makes it easier for another doctor to write a refill.
- Stockpile medication. You may find it difficult to refill our prescriptions during and after a disaster. Talk to your doctor or pharmacist about creating an emergency supply of prescription medications. Find out if pharmacists are allowed to dispense emergency prescription refills.
- Rotate the date. Don’t let medications in your emergency stash expire. Check the dates at least twice every year.
- Electronic medical records. Be sure you have your username and passwords for access your electronic healthcare records.
See the complete list here: https://bit.ly/2lPKoE1
Managing insulin requires some special care. See: https://bit.ly/2BzhxZP
