Red River College, Nursing Department staff and students participated in a Mock disaster.

In September 2013, the Manitoba Health, Office of Disaster Management conducted a mock evacuation of a 75 bed acute care hospital, as well as a 30 bed personal care home from a Northern Health Region in MB.

This was a large, cooperative exercise involving 189 individuals from 62 separate stakeholder groups. Third year RRC nursing students (seen in grey uniforms) and faculty; Lillian Mugweni and Alison Fyfe-Carlson, had an opportunity to practice skills of triage, disaster management and communication with other health departments in the development of an Interim Medical Treatment Facility (IMTF).

An IMTF is a temporary facility that is created to receive a large amount of patients, triage them and provide care while they wait to be placed in an appropriate facility within the health care system.

MB Health considered all of the feedback from stakeholders and developed an “After Action Report/Improvement Plan”.  MB Health plans to look at other collaborative IMTF exercises such as a Trauma Event Scenario in the future.

This was an excellent learning opportunity for RRC Nursing students and faculty.

Active triage