Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
up the PMAC had to proceed rapidly because
patient arrival was imminent, so the emergency
room at the PMAC was up and running in eight or
nine hours. Electricity was in good working order
and generator backup was available.
The DHH, through one of its components, the
Bureau of Emergency Medical Services, was inti-
mately involved in the emergency room's set up,
providing both paramedics and supplies. Two years
before, Guidry and the rest of the medical leader-
ship in the state had evaluated what it would take to
set up a field hospital and had purchased supplies
and equipment through a grant from the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security. As a result, the
state already had a 200-bed hospital and all the
supplies associated with it in storage. Training had
also been in place. In fact, just a week before,
the state held a disaster exercise to prepare for a
fictional storm named “Hurricane Pam.”
Private emergency medical service compa-
nies lent volunteers and equipment. Trevino also
obtained assistance from the nursing, respiratory
therapy, and other professional staff at St. Eliza-
beth's Hospital to set up and staff the PMAC emer-
gency room. During the first 48 hours of operation,
the medical and professional staff worked straight
through, without leaving the facility, perhaps
sleeping for an hour or two at a time. After the
third day, hundreds more volunteers from other
local hospitals arrived to lend a hand, but the huge
volume of patients continued to demand 12-hour
shifts or more.
Large sports arenas typically have sizeable entry
ports where trucks can easily bring equipment into
the site. The medical team chose one of the larger
of these ports as a triage center. They set up
tables in the port, where physicians and nurses
could examine the patients coming in by ambu-
lance or bus and then send them into the arena
on foot or by wheelchair or stretcher. At times,
convoys of up to 15 ambulances, each carrying
four patients, would arrive at once. Busloads of
50 patients would also arrive; sometimes, only a
few on each bus were ill. Healthy passengers who
had traveled 60 miles from New Orleans wanted
to exit the bus, use the bathroom, and have some-
thing to eat or drink before getting back on the bus
to be transferred elsewhere. Patients coming in by
helicopter entered at a different port and then were
triaged. In total, both hospitals treated or housed
roughly 6,000 patients in addition to the people
who simply used the facility as a stopover before
being bused to a shelter. Counting those people,
both facilities served 15,000 to 20,000 people.
Areas of the PMAC were reserved for labo-
ratory, X-ray, electrocardiogram, and ultrasound
services. The staff also arranged for dialysis
patients to be transported to a local dialysis center
for treatment. The hospital even had 80 beds
equipped with a cardiac monitoring system. As
for meals, one of the larger local church groups
called Trevino and announced they could provide
up to 16,000 cooked meals a day for both the
PMAC basketball arena and the special-needs field
house next door. LSU volunteers also donated
food. Meals were provided four times per day so
that staff and volunteers could eat during night
shifts.
Security was initially provided by the LSU secu-
rity force and was later supplemented by SWAT
teams and the National Guard. Neither site had
a major security incident, although a potential
security threat occurred when healthy individuals
arriving in buses were originally told they could not
leave the bus unless they were sick. This problem
was resolved by allowing everyone off the bus to
freshen up and have some food and drink. After the
riders understood that the facility was a hospital
and not a shelter, they returned to their seats on
the bus.
Treating patients
As patients poured into the facilities at LSU,
they quickly filled the basketball arena's emer-
gency room to capacity and spilled over into
the field house for four to five days. The initial
surge of patients was from hospitals and nursing
homes, but buses full of evacuees soon trans-
ported a population of all ages to the facilities.
The principal condition treated was the exacerba-
tion of chronic medical conditions such as diabetes
or asthma because of dehydration and because
patients had not been able to take their prescribed
