Jefferson County Department of Health employees receive training Tuesday at the Gardendale Civic Center. The employees are practicing what they would do in the event of a medical emergency.

By Melanie Patterson

The North Jefferson News



The Gardendale Civic Center Exhibition Hall looked like a mass casualty site Tuesday afternoon.

However, there was no real emergency. It was all an exercise put on by the Jefferson County Department of Health.

Four-hundred health department employees converged on Gardendale this week to train for medical emergencies.

The purpose of the two-day exercise was to train health department employees to deploy and operate point of dispensing (POD) sites in the event of an emergency.

“We’re training our staff to set up POD sites,” said Heather Hogue, the health department’s director of emergency preparedness and response. “In the event of emergencies, we can use them to provide mass treatments such as medications or vaccines.”

Hogue said the training had nothing to do with the recent swine flu outbreaks in Mexico and the U.S.

“We’ve had this on the calendar for months,” she said.

Hogue said several concerned people stopped to ask if the health department was in Gardendale because of the swine flu outbreak.

While it is not related, the outbreak makes this week’s training more relevant, according to Shila McKinney, disease intervention specialist for the health department.

The Gardendale Civic Center is one of 31 POD sites that the health department has designated in Jefferson County.

The idea is to get all of Jefferson County’s 650,000 residents through a POD site within 48 hours of an emergency such as an anthrax attack or other biological situations, according to Frank Phillips, assistant director of environmental health for the health department.

Each POD is designed to triage and treat or hospitalize 450 people per hour. Phillips said more POD sites can be created as needed.

The health department has never had to deploy POD sites in an actual emergency.

“That’s why we’re practicing,” said Phillips, who was role-playing as POD manager Tuesday. “A POD will be controlled chaos.”

Other health department workers were acting as nurses, social workers, guides and public information officers.

POD sites are usually locations that are well-known to the general public, such as civic centers, high schools and recreation centers, said Hogue.

About 200 health department employees completed the training on Tuesday, with another 200 training today.