"Many hospitals in the northwest of England are ill-prepared to deal with a major chemical incident, according to a survey published in the online open access journal `BMC Emergency Medicine'. Two out of 18 hospitals in the region had not written a chemical emergency plan and three A&E departments did not have any staff trained in chemical decontamination."
Press release from the journal's publisher on 20 December 2007.
Posted - 04/01/2008 : 08:29
Just another thing to worry about....... Best to bury your head in the sand here, not much we can do to rectify the situation beyond hope.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk
Posted - 04/01/2008 : 09:40
I see a lot of press releases and thought it might help to share a few now and then with OGFBers. But the intention is to inform them, not frighten them. I think those who like the OGFB site have more than average common sense, so there is protection in that.
As Morecambe & Wise sang "Always look on the bright side of life". The bright side of a report like this one from the Manchester Uni researchers is that it should help to remove complacency among those who organise the hospitals.
So let's all make a New Year's resolution for 2008 - we'll be informed by the news but not intimidated by it!
Posted - 04/01/2008 : 09:52
One of the questions on this is " when was the last major emergency involving chemicals and mass casualties in the North West " ??? It is very difficult to train for this sort of emergeny without it being ongoing, staff change quite frequently in A & E.
Elf & Safety have done a lot over the past few years with CIMHA sites Regs etc to prevent major casualty scenarios.
Northwest hospitals and chemical emergencies
