Were You Prepared For Last Years Pandemic?
One of the side effects of the pandemic is that Americans sharply curbed their visits to the hospital and the doctor’s office for non-COVID-related complaints last year.
Beginning in March 2020, concerns over hospital capacity, social distancing measures, and fears of contracting COVID-19 led people to delay or even cancel many exams and procedures. For example, according to research published by the Kaiser Family Foundation, spending for health care services (not including pharmaceutical drugs) was down by more than 32 percent in April 2020 over April 2019.
Unfortunately, that is not true for me due to an ankle injury that required surgery. I do have to say, the experience was quite different than any visits in the past with all the precautions you had to take just to be onsite.
Although hospital admissions rebounded throughout last year, they remained nearly 9 percent below the predicted annual volume by year-end.
It would be optimistic to think that people were getting less sick last year with ailments other than COVID, but experts say that the statistics tell a different story. People were just not seeking medical treatment and were dealing with many health issues at home. For good or for bad, many people learned to be more reliant on home treatments.
If the past year has taught us anything, it’s that we need to be more proactive than ever before in taking care of our health. After all, we’ve seen first-hand that supplies won’t always be waiting for us on store shelves, and doctors won’t always be available.
One of the best ways to be prepared for a medical emergency is to have the right supplies on hand. For this article, I have compiled a list of basic supplies you should have in your home to handle everything from cuts and scrapes to much more severe injuries or ailments that might result from a weather-related or human-caused disaster.
We’ll begin with the basic building block of your supplies – the first aid kit.
No home, vehicle, or bug-out location should be without a first aid kit. You can purchase a pre-assembled kit or fill a bag or backpack yourself with the necessary supplies. For a list of the contents, we turned to the experts in disaster relief.
Throughout this article, there are links to almost everything I mention. I have done the research and provided this for you to make it easy to find and follow. As an associate, I can make a small commission from sales that started on this page. It will not cost you any more than if you went direct so please use this page to help fund my efforts in helping others to become aware and be ready before they have to be!
Here are 16 supplies the American Red Cross recommends for a family of four:
1. Twenty Five or Fifty adhesive bandages (various sizes)
2. Ten sterile gauze pads (multiple sizes)
3. Five packets of antiseptic wipes
4. Five packets of antibiotic ointment
5. Two triangular bandages
6. Two pairs of non-latex gloves
7. Two packets of hydrocortisone ointment
8. Two compress dressings
9. One three-inch gauze roll bandage
10. One four-inch roller bandage
11. One 10-yard roll of cloth tape
12. One breathing barrier (for CPR use)
13. One folding emergency blanket
14. One (or more) instant cold compress
15. A set of tweezers
16. An emergency first aid guidebook
The Red Cross advises that you inspect your first aid kit at least once every six months for any expiration dates and other supplies that need replacing.
Now that you have your first aid kit filled with 16 items, we’ll continue our list with other emergency supplies you should have on hand. Just so you know, you can’t have too much of some of these items. You need to think of stock rotation though. Don’t get a whole bunch of something that will go bad if you don’t use it.
17. Adhesive tape
18. Superglue
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19. Tourniquet
20. Eyeshield or eye pad
21. Finger splints
22. Cotton balls and swabs
23. Duct tape
24. Petroleum jelly
25. Plastic zippered bags, assorted sizes
26. Large plastic trash bags
27. Safety pins (various sizes)
28. Scissors
29. Hand sanitizer
30. Eyewash solution
32. Bulb suction device (a turkey baster will do nicely)
34. Face masks
35. Medicine cup or spoon or syringe
37. Magnifying glass
39. Medical stapler and staple remover
40. Dental mirror
Medications
Now let’s consider the medications you should have in supply for medical emergencies.
41. Personal prescriptions
42. Aloe vera gel
43. Calamine lotion
44. Anti-diarrheal medication (such as Loperamide)
45. Laxative
46. Antacids
47. Antihistamine (such as diphenhydramine)
49. Cough and cold medications
50. Auto-injector of epinephrine (epi-pen) if prescribed for a member of your family
51. Pain relievers (such as acetaminophen and ibuprofen)
52. Aspirin (Aspirin can be life-saving in an adult with chest pain. However, do not give aspirin to children and don’t take aspirin if you take blood-thinning medication or have issues with bleeding.)
53. Lidocaine cream
54. Pedialyte (Electrolyte powders)
55. Stomach gas reducer (Simethicone)
56. Fiber powder (Metamucil)
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57. Zinc
58. Vitamin C
59. Vitamin D
60. Multivitamins
62. Burn gel or cream
Other Emergency Items
That’s right, even after all that, you still can stockpile more! I am not going to continue with this article but I promise there is more to come!
If you are interested in prepping but not sure where to start, I am here to help! Just subscribe to Your Survival Plan and I will help you start putting your emergency kit together and continue to develop skills that no one can take away from you!
If you are serious about this and are not part of a community, at least go out on your own and learn more!
Take a Class
If you’ve been putting off taking a CPR class, a first aid course, or wilderness survival training, procrastinate no longer. None of these classes will give you the training of a qualified nurse or doctor, but they can go a long way in helping you keep a clear head and take confident steps to help someone in a medical emergency.
Check out your local community college for course offerings, and here are some other courses you can take in-person and online:
- American Red Cross online first aid courses
- American Red Cross CPR classes
- American Heart Association CPR and First Ai classes
- REI Wilderness Survival classes
Study and Learn
Although it’s easy to look up medical information on your phone, we recommend investing in a medical guidebook to help you prepare for disaster situations. Here are few suggestions:
- The Survival Medicine Handbook. The husband-wife team of Joe Alton, MD, and Amy Alton, ARNP, wrote this book for people who are not medical professionals with disaster preparedness in mind.
- Survival Medicine: The Essential Handbook for Emergency Preparedness and First Aid. Here’s a practical handbook by Thomas Coyne to help you know what to do when medical help is far away, and you need to take action in the aftermath of an earthquake, fire, or another disaster.
- The Prepper’s Medical Handbook. Written by William Forgey, MD, this handbook covers the prevention, identification, and management of medical conditions that can be performed with minimal training.
Finally, you may be wondering where you will put all these supplies. Not all of them will fit on your medicine cabinet, and your standard first aid kit should remain well-sticked with the first part of our list.
You might want to purchase a plastic storage tub (or two) to keep all these supplies and your medical records organized and in one place. Place the bin in an area that is dry and out of direct sunlight. Since it contains some potentially dangerous items and medicine sure it is out of reach of young children.
Again, if you would like me to help you streamline this process subscribe to Your Survival Plan and I will keep you motivated and heading in the right direction to build this over time and make it a habit so you are ready before you have to be!
I am here to help!
Chad
Hi there! I must say that this is a great post you’ve shared. I agree with you that, last year taught us a lesson that we’ll not always have doctors available to us all the time, and we may not have time to get health supplies anytime we wish. But our health will always be important, that is why we need to have these health supplies at home, waiting for dark days. The list you provided here is very helpful and I will use it to get some of which I’m running short of.
Thanks for sharing this important information with us.
Hello there mister,
I remember when I was a younger man, this kind of thing didn’t mean as much to me. The older I get the more pertinent it becomes. I also have more experience in using these items on others than I did then and maybe understand the importance of it all a little better now.
I am not trying to be the guy that uses fear or scare tactics. I don’t mean to be the doomsday kind of prepper either. After doing a lot of research on this topic I have found the instability of some of our systems, even in a first-world country, are more fragile than I expected.
Here is something I have come across that could help others understand why an article like this is so important and get them some training in this area. I have been through first aid and CPR training so many times but what I have learned from this goes beyond that. Survival MD has information to help you know how to identify requirements and how to give immediate treatment in an emergency.
Thanks for stopping by! Hope to talk soon!
Chad