Medi̇cal rescue servi̇ces i̇n di̇sassters and soci̇al relati̇ons

Since the dawn of the planet Earth, there have been many natural phenomena experienced and a clash between Earth and its human inhabitants witnessed. Within this clash, natural phenomena have caused massive death toll, which forced human beings to seek for new techniques to overcome these natural disasters. The extent of these drastic disasters that has an impact on the lives of millions of people is determined by the ways the governments handle them and the ways the exposed people see them. Turkey is located on a region which is quite vulnerable to both natural and human-made disasters; moreover, the range and the frequency of these disasters have been noted to be increasing not only in Turkey but also all over the world. Particularly the devastating effects of 1999 earthquake was drastically extended by lacking rescue capacity, which proves the necessity to employ a medical rescue team. With the help of UMKE teams which consists of professional medical volunteers, rescue capacity has been increased; therefore, the death toll of Van and Simav earthquakes has been noted lower than of 1999. The work-field of medical rescue teams is included within social services. Since the emergence of social services as a career field, disasters and disaster relief have been an accentuated field which covers extensive professional contributions from emergency aid and rescue to elimination of social and economic inabilities of petitioners who faced a disaster. In addition to a cooperation of search and rescue teams, medical staff and social service experts, teams involved in a disaster need each other on the field since it is quite likely for the involved teams to experience humanly responses. To be able to overcome these responses and to work sufficiently and efficiently as a team, it is crucial for team mates to foster a team spirit. Particularly underdeveloped countries seem to fail to assure the coordination between disaster related bodies, which reduces the effectiveness of disaster relief efforts and strikes like a second disaster. To assure the necessary coordination and cooperation, the persons and bodies to be employed in disaster relief should be pre-determined and provided with a clear guideline. Disaster management is based on the idea of a centralized supervision of services. This study seeks to point out the relationship between medical rescue in disasters and social work and the deficiencies of disaster management. Through an evaluation and assessment of data acquired from 1999 Marmara, Simav and Van Earthquakes, the study suggests a centralized supervision of services and that medical rescue and social work are inseparable.