Connecticut Health Officials Train for Crisis

ON OCTOBER 1, EMERGENCY MEDICAL TECHNICIANS AND health officials from across Fairfield, CT deployed a 10-bed mobile field hospital as part of a emonstration led by the state’s Department of Public Health.

The training exercise was designed to better prepare local first responders for a large-scale emergency, such as a pandemic outbreak or natural disaster, in which medical surge facilities would be needed.

The hospital, which participants were able to set up in less than an hour, was part of the 100-bed Ottilie W. Lundgren Memorial Field Hospital purchased from DHS Systems in 2004. Featuring heating and cooling, as well as the power needed to run defibrillators, intravenous infusion pumps, ventilators and other necessary medical equipment, personnel expect to use the field hospital as a triage area in the event of a widespread health crisis.

As Fairfield Health Director Sands Clearly explained to The Connecticut Post following the training event: “It’s providing additional hospital capacity in an emergency situation.”

Though the state’s Department of Public Health has yet to deploy the complete 14,000 square foot hospital, the demonstration in Fairfield is just the latest instance in which personnel have used part of the mobile facility. Most recently, in August, officials used four of the hospital’s DRASH environmental control units (ECUs) to cool Lawrence & Martin Memorial Hospital’s emergency room in New London following a two alarm fire.

“We’ve used the field hospital for applications that we never dreamed of when we first purchased it. A lot of the equipment from the hospital has been configured so that it can be used in a number of situations,” says Len Guercia, Operations Branch Chief of the Connecticut Department of Health.