October 19, 2017
Imagine a tornado rips through Southwestern Ontario injuring hundreds of people. The injured are brought in to our emergency departments. It could happen anytime, it could happen today.
On Oct. 12, approximately 600 staff, physicians, students and volunteers from London Health Sciences Centre participated in a city-wide full-scale emergency exercise, required under the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act.
All stakeholder groups involved in community emergency management - police, fire, EMS, transit, health care – participated in planning and implementing the event.
Fanshawe College provided about 100 students in full moulage, the art of applying mock injuries for the purpose of medical emergency training, who acted as ‘victims’.
According to LHSC’s role in a community disaster, the ‘victims’ were brought to the ED and assessed. Those ‘admitted’ were decanted to patient care units, while other ‘victims’ were moved through to the operating rooms.
“Exercises such as these are vital to ensuring that we are all prepared should a real Code Orange situation arise and, no matter how strong our processes are, these exercises always provide new learnings to make them even stronger,” says Murray Glendining, President and CEO. “I am confident, following last Thursday’s scenario we are well prepared for such an emergency.”
To see more photos from the exercise visit our Facebook Album.
