The St. Mary Medical Center Disaster Resource Center (DRC) and the Long Beach Fire Department Hazardous Materials (HAZMAT) Team gave a decontamination demonstration last Friday morning at the medical center. The demonstration took place at the decontamination trailer located behind the Health Enhancement Center and taught “first receivers” and “first responders” necessary and safe decontamination skills.
St. Mary is the lead DRC in Long Beach and implements disaster plans, provides educational services, consults, collaborates and drills with its surrounding community agencies such as the fire department and police department, and trains neighboring umbrella hospitals to be first receivers and first responders.
“The DRC is crucial to our community in case of disaster,” said Kathy Crow, RN, emergency preparedness coordinator. “We can effectively coordinate, plan and implement an effective regional disaster response for Long Beach.”
St. Mary stockpiles disaster supplies, houses portions of the CDC Strategic National Stockpile and other pharmaceutical caches and provides education for neighboring community partners on hospital incident command, mass casualty triage, hospital coordination and disaster management. The St. Mary DRC works with the Long Beach Emergency Operations Command (EOC) Center/ Long Beach Fire Department Disaster Management Division and plays an active role on the citywide EOC Disaster Committee. As the paramedic base station of Long Beach, St. Mary Medical Center also hosts paramedic and fire education symposiums for pre-hospital and first responder agencies.
