Renfrew County, ON: Training to deal with a flu crisis
Training to deal with a flu crisis
Posted By STEPHEN UHLER
Renfrew County is well on track for its June 18 'Flu the Coop' emergency exercise, having secured the star of the SARS crisis of 2003.
Brian Leahey, deputy chief of the County of Renfrew Paramedic Service, told the county's health committee that Dr. James Young, the special advisor to the Ministry of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada and the former Commissioner of Emergency Management Ontario, will be on hand.
He said Dr. Young, who had the responsibility for managing Ontario's response to the SARS outbreaks of five years ago, will be providing the pandemic education component of the day's session.
"Dr. Young has a wealth of experience in this," Mr. Leahey said. "The county is fortunate to have secured his services."
All 17 lower-tier municipalities will be taking part in the county exercise, organized by the County of Renfrew Emergency Services Department, which will focus on reacting to an influenza pandemic.
The county and all lower-tier municipalities are legislated by the Emergency Preparedness and Civil Protection Act to conduct an annual training exercise of the Municipal Emergency Response Plan.
The objective of the June event is to run through community emergency plans to see how well they work in concert with the county's plan, and test inter-agency and inter-municipal communications during an extended emergency.
Afterward, a detailed debriefing session will take place to go over what went right and what needs improvement in the plans.
The exercise is also meant to raise awareness of the risks associated with a pandemic.
The county anticipates more than 200 members of lower-tier municipal emergency control groups, county departments and other agencies will participate in the day-long event.
Elsewhere on the emergency planning front, the county learned it has been successful in obtaining funding for both the 'Flu the Coop' event and a second emergency responders exercise dealing with a chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear incident.
Mr. Leahey said both of their applications to Emergency Management Ontario under its the 2008-2009 Joint Emergency Preparedness Program were approved.
The county received a total of $6,465 in grants to run the two exercises.
suhler@thedailyobserver.ca
Article ID# 1030583
#If you have any other info about this subject , Please add it free.# |
