Stored in a warehouse in Seatac is a 600-bed hospital in a box, waiting for the day when hospitals can no longer handle the mass casualties of a disaster or medical emergency
All that’s needed is a building or buildings and medical personnel and others to triage the injured or sick and save their lives.
Finding and training those personnel is the responsibility of Dave Nichols, Medical Reserve and Workforce Deployment manager for Public Health – Seattle and King County.
The reality is that a disaster, such as a flood or an earthquake, or a public health emergency, such as a flu outbreak, could wreak havoc on the medical infrastructure, overwhelming hospitals with patients they don’t have the room or the personnel to treat.
In a major disaster or medical crisis, Nichols said, “We are going to need all the help we can get.”
The decision to deploy the volunteers and their gear, including those beds, is made by Public Health’s chief medical officer, in consultation with regional emergency responders.
Right now, there are about 300 volunteers who are part of the Public Health Reserve Corps;
Nichols would feel more comfortable if he had 500 or more volunteers to serve countywide.
The greatest void in the volunteer roll is in South King County: Renton has seven volunteers, Kent has five and Auburn has six.
That doesn’t mean that South King County would go without the support of the medical corps. In any disaster, the region’s response coordinators send help to wherever the need is greatest, regardless of region or who provided those resources.
Public Health divides the county into three zones, Seattle, the Eastside and South King County. Most of the volunteers are in Seattle and the Eastside.
But it does mean that Nichols is actively recruiting medical professionals and others in South King County to sign up for the reserve corps. Monthly orientation workshops are held to explain how the corps works and complete registration paperwork. The next one is Dec. 15.
“The reason we are pushing now is that during a disaster it’s hard to work with spontaneous volunteers,” he said.
To become a medical reservist, volunteers must put in about nine hours for paperwork, online training and orientation. Medical licenses are validated and background checks made. Two classes offered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency are required.
Advance registration allows volunteers to train with other responders during disaster exercises, including the American Red Cross and CERT or Community Emergency Response Teams. The Public Health Reserve Corps falls under same federal Citizen Corps umbrella as CERT.
Some people shy away from the medical reserves because they think only doctors and nurses are needed, Nichols said. However, two support volunteers are needed for each medical volunteer. Those volunteers set up beds, greet patients and help with medical paperwork.
Public Health reserve volunteers also help at other times. In October and November volunteers spent about 160 hours giving 600 flu shots at homeless shelters and day centers.
In November an exercise was held at McCaw Hall in Seattle – the home of the Seattle Opera – to train volunteers to give mass inoculations.
Public Health also would need a place or places to set up shelters to augment medical facilities, staffed with all those medical and support volunteers.
South King County has two buildings already identified for shelters for the general public, but Nichols won’t reveal where they are. He doesn’t want people showing up at the sites if they haven’t been activated. When the time comes, the locations will be announced.
These small alternative facilities take the pressure off hospitals and bring care closer to the public.
Medical reservists are not first responders, Nichols said, but their activation could happen quickly.
It would take about two days to set up that 600-bed hospital all at once. But more likely Public Health would draw on those 600 hospital beds to set up alternative-care facilities throughout the county.
With planning, the corps can set up a 100-bed facility in about six hours, Nichols said.
Corps registration workshops
The Public Health Reserve Corps holds a registration workshop for new volunteers every month in the first floor of the Chinook Building, 401 Fifth Ave., downtown Seattle. Prospective volunteers receive an orientation, complete registration paperwork and have a photo taken for an ID badge. An online application must be submitted prior to attending the registration workshop.
The workshops are the 3:30 p.m.-5:30 p.m. the Wednesday of each month. The dates are Dec. 15, 2010, Jan. 19, 2011, Feb. 16, March 16, April 20, May 18, June 15, July 20, Aug. 17, Sept. 21, Oct. 19, Nov. 16 and Dec. 15.
