Don't forget special needs!



Hey Preppers,

As group medic, one of your first duties is to put together a needs assessment. You will have to determine various issues that will be likely to impact your family or survival group in a collapse situation. Based on your assessments of their needs, you can put together an effective strategy to keep everyone healthy.

One aspect of such an assessment is to identify what I will term "special needs". Do you know all the chronic medical conditions that each members of your group has to deal with? Does someone have diabetes or high blood pressure? Does one of the children suffer from asthma? Do you have an elderly individual with significant arthritis? All of these problems will cause the wise medic to modify their supplies and expand their knowledge so that they can treat these special needs effectively.

Let's take someone who takes 250 mg of glucophage daily for diabetes as an example. Has that person asked their doctor for enough prescriptions so that they can stockpile their medicines? You have to encourage anyone with special needs to have several months (at least) of their medications in storage. If this is difficult, another (I admit, controversial) strategy is possible. Ask your doctor for a higher prescription strength of the medicine you take. If you can convince your doctor that you will continue to take your medicine according to his or her instructions, you might get 500 mg pills that you could cut in half. Take your daily 250mg, and store the other half of the tablet. Over time, you will accumulate a good amount of medicine to deal with your special need.

Remember, strategies like this are only for post-apocalyptic settings. You are the SURVIVAL group medic, so only function as one when modern medical care is not available. It is illegal to practice medicine without a medical license!

Dr. Bones