GEORGE NEWS - The George Hospital was abuzz last week when it took part in the 'major incident training' exercise coordinated by Airport Company South Africa (Acsa) last week, as reported in the George Herald.

It proved its mettle in handling such an emergency situation with success while still continuing its routine services.

Nadia Ferreira, the hospital communications officer, said after the hospital was placed on standby by Metro Control and was asked to activate its major incident plan, they were quick to establish the hospital operations centre (HOC), which is responsible for the coordination of all hospital services during a major incident. The staff in the emergency centre immediately prepared to receive casualties.

The exercise involved a scenario where a plane with landing gear hydraulics failure collided with another plane on the ground at the airport. There were a total of 141 people on board the two planes.

"As would happen in a real incident, stable patients were moved to another part of the hospital so that the emergency centre could be ready to receive casualties from the incident. Additional medical, nursing and support staff were redeployed to assist with the incident," said Ferreira.

"We created an additional critical care facility and operating theatres were also prepared to undertake additional emergency surgery. Support staff play a vital role in managing such an incident and therefore additional personnel such as porters, security and switchboard operators were deployed. Extra clinical supplies, linen and food are always necessary and these services were ready to assist. Various administrative staff were reassigned duties to assist and the workshop personnel were also on hand to assist with any urgent equipment repairs."

The district hospitals in Knysna, Mossel Bay and Oudsthoorn were placed on standby to receive additional casualties or transfers from George Hospital.

The HOC was also in close liaison with Mediclinic George, which also activated its own incident plan and took part in the training exercise.
George Hospital received 33 casualties, with a range of injuries (mostly triage category red and yellow). Patients were 'treated' in the different areas of the emergency centre with a team approach, and coordinated by the emergency centre.

"During the simulation exercise, the hospital continued to provide its routine services and no clinics or operations were cancelled. Patients and visitors were kept informed about what was taking place," said Ferreira.

Experts impressed
The management of the incident was observed by experts from Cape Town, including Dr Wayne Smith (head of Disaster Medicine, Western Cape Government) and Dr Saadiq Kariem (chief director of General Specialist and Emergency Services). Michael Vonk, the CEO of the hospital said that during the debriefing session they were extremely positive about how the hospital had responded and managed the incident.

"I wish to thank all my staff who approached the training exercise with such enthusiasm. It is especially difficult to sustain the provision of routine hospital services for our patients during such a simulation exercise. It was an excellent opportunity to test our major incident plan and our training in order to ensure that the hospital is fully prepared, in the event of a real incident. We recently appointed a specialist emergency medicine physician, Dr Anne Smith, and she and her team were instrumental in making the day a success."

In addition to George Hospital, Emergency Medical Services (EMS), Forensic Pathology Services (FPS) as well as other local emergency services were all involved in the training exercise.


The 'casualties' were all children from a local high school and make-up was used to create mock injuries and make the exercise as realistic as possible. Photos: Nadia Ferreira

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