Coordination of volunteer assistance
“We did have chaos”, is the description one
volunteer leader gave of the situation during the first
2 days. This is a personal view, but I think that many
volunteers had that feeling at the time. An overall organizational
structure, a central point delegating tasks, was lacking.
Volunteers and volunteer groups did not have a coordinating
point yet, neither amongst themselves, nor with the hospital.
For three reasons this has not thwarted voluntary work.
First, some volunteers had a more or less established
line of contact with some doctors in charge of this disaster’s
management (Dr. Cakra, Dr.Wayan Sutarga)6.
Secondly during the first days the hospital was welcoming
assistance and very accomodating. Appropriate spaces –
for the intake at the entrance of the polyclinic, a hotline,
a crisiscentre, intake of medicines, intake of cloth,
a cafetaria - and some use of facilities were very quickly
provided. Third, amongst volunteers some persons stepped
into a leadership role quite naturally.
However, over the days the lack of structure and control
became a problem – in particular for the hospital
- as the number of volunteers swelled and not every volunteer
had something useful to do. Moreover the Red Cross, which
had not been able to take on all the tasks done by volunteers
at once, after a few days was ready for it7.
The request by the hospital to step back, caused friction
and frustration on the part of some volunteers, especially
those who had been working hard. This could have been
forestalled with an organizational structure in place.
Recommendation:
- COORDINATION of all volunteer assistance
must be with the task force of the HOSPITAL
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Note. Perhaps on the outside this recommendation
seems self-evident. But at the time, the situation proved
it was not. The hospital asked the volunteers to organize
themselves -which was impossible because too many different
groups of individuals not knowing eachother were involved.
For some volunteers it was also not self-evident as they
were close to ‘running their own show’. The
recommendation given here implies that it should be clear
from the beginning that volunteers are there to assist
the hospital, and nothing more.
| Detailed recommendations:
Preparation (including recruitment of volunteers)
- specify taks to be assigned to each organization.
This makes it easier for the organizations to
recruit volunteers with the required skills.
- determine which volunteers tasks fall under
which member of the Hospital Crisis Intervention
Team that has been trained for Disaster Preparedness
and include this in an organisation chart.
- include representatives from consulates
(if there are consulates, like in Bali)
- Put these data on a website listing all
registered volunteers including their specific
skills and organization (the web site could have
an sms capability, so that hundreds of sms messages
can be sent very quickly to people needed immediately).
Include a registration form and ad in local
media (Bali advertiser, Bali Post, Nusa) so people
can apply as a volunteer and fill in their skills.
- Set up an agreement who will and how to phase
out of volunteers.
- Training updates (once a year?) with
volunteer organizations to go over the procedures
according to the emergency plan and to exchange
updated information on the names, telephonenumbers
etc. of the contact persons at the hospital and
on the side of the organisations.
When disaster occurs:
- Organisation chart to be at hand and to be put
up in strategic places in case of crisis (in print).
- Register ’loose’ volunteers (doctors
and nurses on holiday) at a special coordinating
desk by the hospital, that works with a classification
system for volunteers (professionals in categories,
‘muscles’). So they can be called
if needed later.
- Hand out badges for volunteers with their
section and task on it are available beforehand.
(now every volunteer had a name tag saying ‘volunteer’,
actually not very functional).
- Rosters to be made for volunteers. People
got totally overworked (and worked-up!).
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