Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Hospital Officials Prepare For The Worst

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 12:40:35 -0500

http://www.newsday.com/mynews/ny-nyhosp233186675mar23.story

Hospital Officials Prepare For The Worst

By Margaret Ramirez
STAFF WRITER

March 23, 2003

Hours after the first bombs fell over Baghdad, Dr. Tucker Woods, head of the emergency
department at Long Island College
Hospital in Brooklyn, began organizing meetings and drills for mass casualties.

At St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center and Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan,
hospital staff were directed to call a
new preparedness hotline every day before coming to work.

The hotline recording last week said: "During this period of heightened vigilance, we urge
you to be particularly alert to any
suspicious or out-of-the-ordinary situations that you may encounter."

As security measures heightened across the city last week, hospital officials reviewed the
lessons learned from the Sept. 11
attacks and prepared for the worst.

Dr. Benjamin Chu, head of the city's Health and Hospitals Corporation, said the 11 public
hospitals are now all equipped with
decontamination units and have been conducting terrorism drills in past months.

"We've had multiple drills, lots of training of the staff, we've had table-top exercises
to look at a variety of scenarios, we've
done equipment purchases, we've stocked antidotes and all sorts of other medications,
antibiotic preparations," Chu said.

"You never know whether you are fully prepared, but I think that we've tried to do as much
as we can, in any eventuality, at
this point."

Health commissioner Thomas Frieden said city epidemiologists are monitoring more than
30,000 possible indicators of illness
every day, including ambulance runs, emergency department visits and pharmacy
prescriptions.

"We look to see if there are any cluster or groupings that could be of concern. If there
is, we send epidemiologists or disease
detectives there to investigate. If we were to find anything, we would rapidly go into
action to ensure that we have a prompt
diagnosis and effective response," Frieden said.

Woods, of Long Island College Hospital, said the onset of the war prompted his colleagues
to call several meetings to review
disaster scenarios. On Sept. 11, many cell phones went out of service, so hospital
officials now have Nextel phones that also work like walkie-talkies.

"We're just being really active about reminding the staff about what they need to know and
what we should do if an attack
happens," Woods said. "My theory is that if we prepare enough, there won't be an attack."

--
    "NEXTEL-1 IT'S NOT JUST NEXTEL"
  Note The New address
Subscribe to Nextel-1: http://www.groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/NEXTEL-1

  "NEXTEL2 FOR iDEN SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS"
Subscribe to Nextel2: http://www.groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/NEXTEL2

  "WIRELESS FORUM HOMELAND SECURITY GROUP"
     The Complete Resource for Wireless Homeland Security.
Subscribe to WFHSG:  http://www.groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/WFHSG

------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Make Money Online Auctions! Make $500.00 or We Will Give You Thirty Dollars for Trying!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/yMx78A/fNtFAA/46VHAA/61FxlB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/