Health district conducts mass medication drill
David Cole | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 11 years, 6 months AGO
<p>Alisa Tenney receives medication instructions from Keriana Forrester, a nurse with the Idaho medical reserve corps, after making her way through the medication exercise Wednesday at the Kootenai County Fairgrounds with her children Riley, 11, Alison, 10, Emily, 5, and Katie, 6.</p>
<p> Jim Karlstrand interviews a volunteer in the triage area during the mass medication exercise Wednesday.</p>
COEUR d'ALENE - There are strains of influenza - including some in China - the Panhandle Health District is keeping its eyes on.
In the meantime, the district on Wednesday tested its plans and ability to order and dispense a massive amount of medication in a crisis - such as a flu emergency or biological- or chemical-weapon attack.
"We've written plans, we've trained, and then you want to see really how well that works," said Dale Peck, the incident commander.
The fictitious emergency scenario created for Wednesday's exercise was an anthrax attack.
"A mutated strain of some kind of illness that can pass human to human is probably the thing that's most likely," Peck said.
During the exercise, public-health providers assessed the situation, simulated an order of medication from the federal Strategic National Stockpile, opened a mass medication center at the Kootenai County Fairgrounds and dispensed candy medication to about 300 community volunteers.
The exercise allowed district officials to work with law enforcement, fire department representatives, and emergency medical personnel.
"They need to know that they can all work together and that they all speak the same language," said Cynthia Taggart, a spokeswoman for the district.
In a real emergency, the district would operate mass medication centers in all five North Idaho counties.
For this exercise, the district operated a fraction of one center. About 50 people from the district practiced triage, registration, checking forms, moving people through the center, working with people with disabilities and limited language skills, medical evaluation, dispensing medication - M & M's and Sweet Tarts - and managing the medication center.
Taggart said in the case of a real emergency the public is going to have some level of fear and anxiety. It's important to demonstrate there is a plan in place and it works well.
"If this were a real situation, we really don't want to increase anybody's panic," she said. "They don't need to see us freaking out about something that's not going right for us."