The main entrance sign at the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance. (File photo by Jake Kislinsky)The main entrance sign at the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance. (File photo by Jake Kislinsky)
Chatham

CKHA practices Code Orange for disaster preparedness

Chatham-Kent Health Alliance staff will get some practice preparing for a disaster Wednesday afternoon.

The hospital’s emergency room has scheduled a Code Orange drill from 1pm to 3pm.

Code Orange refers to an external disaster that sends a sudden influx of patients to the hospital. CKHA’s drill coincides with drills by local emergency services, who will be preparing for what happens in the process of getting the injured from a disaster scene to a hospital.

“This allows us to practice our policy around Code Orange and look for any gaps we can identify,” said Dave Gaudry, manager of emergency preparedness for CKHA.

The Ontario Hospital Association mandates 13 different codes for hospitals. These codes were standardized in 1993 and the most recent code was added in June 2016.

Code Orange hasn’t been practiced in about five years. There will be ten mock patients involved in the drill.

“We try and rotate every year, we can’t practice every code every year,” said Gaudry. “We did Silver earlier this year.”

Code Silver is designed to alert staff to the existence of a person with a weapon on the premises.

Extra staff have been scheduled to accommodate the drill and to ensure existing patients will not see a disruption in their care. Signage will be used to ensure patients know what is going on, and all existing access doors remain usable. Personnel from Wallaceburg will also participate in the mock drill.

The mock drill has taken six weeks to plan in conjunction with emergency services.

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