Care of the dead

Ebola Outbreak - Quality of Core Services - Safe Burial (as of 15 Sept 2014)

Safe and dignified burials are important to family and friends as well as for public health. Maps can be produced to visualise where facilities and practices are available for a safe and dignified burial.

Strategic or operational?

Both

Basemap, baseline or situational?

Situational

When might it be produced?

These maps will be produced once loss of life has occurred and at a time that is culturally appropriate for the community affected.

Intended audience

Invariably health is linked to many other vulnerabilities and is impacted by all eleven clusters in the UN system (sectors of the humanitarian system that help to coordinate a humanitarian response), in particular:

• Nutrition

• Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)

• Logistics - transport / access

The intended audience includes a variety of actors either directly involved in health, or those supporting health needs:

• Ministry of Health / Department for Health

• National Health Care Providers

• Local Government

• Civil Society / Community Organisations

• Affected communities / population

• National and International health related NGOs

• National Red Cross / International Federation of Red Cross

• World Health Organisation

• Emergency Medical Teams /Emergency Medical Teams Coordination Cell

Influence on humanitarian decisions

Will be dependent on if the maps are strategic, operational or both and will vary by intended audience. To be updated based on planned expert interviews.

Methods

Access to timely and accurate data is essential for a health response. It is important to get the best available data although it may not always be perfect.

Robust information management and governance is essential when accessing, storing and visualising health data. The agreed use of the data must be established and recorded from the outset.

A process of data manipulation may be required to ensure individuals, families or villages can not be identified. A number of methods can be used to achieve this including the suppression of small numbers, aggregation of data to a higher level and minimising the use of other data / detail on a map that could make identification easier. These checks must be in place to ensure patient’s right to privacy and dignity are maintained.

Data

Resources

• Global Health Cluster

• World Health Organisation

• Emergency Medical Teams

• Health Resource Availability Monitoring System (HeRAMS)

• Early Warning, Alert and Response System (EWARS)

• The Sphere Handbook - Minimum standards in Health action

• Multi-Cluster / Sector Initial Rapid Needs Assessment (MIRA)

• The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

• Ministry of Health / Department of Health (country specific)

• ACAPS