Hospitals plan for the worst

 

Charleston police and others drilled at CAMC Thursday.

Hospitals around the region were on high alert Thursday as they dealt with a major emergency. Granted, it was a mock disaster but the folks at CAMC took it very seriously. In fact, they had double the trouble.

The region-wide event focused on an infectious disease that sweeps through the Boy Scout camp in Fayette County. Hospitals from Greenbrier to Putnam Counties dealt with an influx of “patients” who needed medical treatment. Home school students stepped in to act as Scouts needing treatment at Women and Children’s Hospital.

On top of that, CAMC added an active shooter drill to their exercise at their General Division.

Hospital Spokesman Dale Witt says practice makes perfect.

“We’ve worked with the [Charleston] Police Department and the [Kanawha County] Sheriff’s Department over the past few months to develop a scenario to practice and prepare for some type of event like this,” explains Witt.

The challenge is that all three CAMC hospitals in Charleston are involved in the drill. Women and Children’s with the Scouts, General with the shooting scenario and Memorial took on a new role.

“Because the ER at General is shut down due to this drill, all trauma patients have to go to Memorial,” says Witt. “Memorial Hospital doesn’t see a lot of trauma patients. So this is testing them to see how they would react if something like this would happen and they would have to be the primary trauma center.”

The hospital already had an emergency plan in place but Witt says these types of drills really test their skills.

“After we’re done with the drill, we’ll sit down immediately and talk about how things went,” says Witt. “Later on, after we’ve had time to calm down and process things and think about them a little bit, we’ll discuss it a little bit more and make changes to the plan.”

Witt says after what happened in Boston last week, you can never be too prepared.





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