Community and Family Health care-interprofessional Education (CFHC-IPE) Faculty of Medicine UGM held a disaster simulation and emergency training. The event was attended by as many as 471 students of Medicine Faculty class of 2013 and 100 local people. The event was held from Saturday to Sunday (17-18/9) in Pager Jurang, Sleman regency.
The committee, Dr. dr. Wahyudi Istiono, M.Kes., said that disaster simulation and emergency training was held to practice disaster management at every cycle of disaster. In addition, the event also aims to understand the public health problems which may arise in the event of a disaster.
“Through this training, participants were also able to implement collaboration between the health teams in disaster management,” said Wahyudi.
He described the disaster simulation and emergency training needs to be done in Yogyakarta since its geographical location which consists of mountains, hills, and plains has a high risk for disaster. For example, in 2010 after the eruption of Mount Merapi, careful handling still needs to be done related to the cold lahars which could flow anytime.
Wahyudi thinks that all this time university student is considered to be an important actor as well as a driving force in a variety of disaster risk reduction. The emerging paradigm is formed by high responsibility felt by university students in disaster response. Therefore, they should be equipped with knowledge and skills in disaster management.
“Training and simulation will be important provision for students when they have to perform disaster management,” he added.
The location where the training was held is one of the areas affected by the eruption of Mount Merapi, which is now used as a disaster resilient village where people have been given the knowledge and capability for disaster response. The choice of location is deemed appropriate for learning activity for the participants.