Hoping for the best, preparing for the worst
Dr. Doug McKnight, medical director, emergency medicine, speaks with a mock patient during a previous Code Orange exercise at VGH.
We don’t like to think about it. We hope it never happens. But, sadly, it has happened. On October 27, 2011, Flight 204 crashed in Richmond. On Wednesday, April 17, another plane will “crash” – and VGH and UBCH will feel the impact.
Next week we’ll participate in a YVR exercise involving a mock plane crash, mock patients and more than 24 other organizations. The crash will be fake, but the test of our Code Orange disaster response plans will be real.
Recent events, including the 2012 Burns Lake sawmill explosion, remind us that disasters and mass casualties can happen anywhere, at any time. And they can affect any number of staff across VCH. That’s why it’s so important that we test and re-test our Code Orange plans.
On April 17, we won’t transfer mock patients to VGH or UBCH treatment areas, but this will be a hands-on exercise. Depending on your position, you may help us test our Code Orange plans in one of the following areas:
- VGH ED
- VGH Emergency Operations Centre (EOC )
- UBCH Incident Command Post
- VGH and UBCH units
- VGH-centralized patient records and tracking
To learn more about our upcoming Code Orange exercise, read last week’s article.