We know we need to be more disaster prepared, but what does this look like for the Australian nurse?

抄録

Australia is a well-resourced country with a universal health system that relies heavily on the nurse across primary and acute sectors. With the increase of natural disasters and recognition of new and emerging disaster events, the nurse needs to be better prepared than ever to step into a disaster response role. Currently, disaster nurse training is offered by some health districts but mainly relies on the nurse to self-initiate education at a post graduate level. It may therefore be time to consider change in undergraduate curriculum to incorporate an all-hazards disaster component. For the nurse, an all-hazards approach prepares them for various disaster and emergency events, focusing on common elements to enhance the nurse's overall readiness and response. As seen with the COVID-19 pandemic, nurses were placed in new challenging roles they had little preparation for and this direly affected resilience leaving the workforce burned out. At the undergraduate level, an all-hazards response can be tailored to address Australia's multicultural population and disaster priorities. Better prepared nurses equates to higher health workforce resilience for disaster events benefiting the Australian community.