Mobile Hospital Trucking to Mississippi
Sep. 3–About 70 doctors, nurses, paramedics and police officers left Charlotte for Jackson, Miss., on Friday in a caravan of 15 trucks, including two 18-wheelers that make up a mobile hospital.
Tom Blackwell, an emergency physician at Carolinas Medical Center, is leading the team of volunteers who will rotate in and out of the Gulf Coast for eight to 12 weeks.
Meanwhile, about 100 patients from hurricane-battered hospitals are expected to arrive in the next few days at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport, where they will be evaluated and referred to hospitals in the area. But Mecklenburg County emergency management officials said Friday they don’t know yet when the patients will be here.
Seven refugees from the Gulf Coast were treated at CMC’s emergency department this week, spokeswoman Nancy Ryan said. None was admitted. All had traveled to Charlotte to stay with family, Ryan said.
In Rock Hill, Piedmont Medical Center received three more patients Friday after admitting two Thursday, spokeswoman Myra Joines said. The five patients, all in critical condition, came from Kenner Regional Medical Center in Kenner, La., and Meadowcrest Hospital in Gretna, La. The hospitals are owned by Tenet Healthcare, which also owns Piedmont.
Also, 14 paramedics, nurses and EMTs from Piedmont will leave today for Louisiana to relieve colleagues at NorthShore Regional Medical Center in Slidell, La.
On Friday, before departing with the mobile hospital from Medic headquarters on Statesville Road, CMC’s Blackwell said he talked with Louisiana’s chief of emergency medical services who has been “begging for five days for Band-Aids,” Blackwell said. “He’s overwhelmed. He basically has nothing.”
The mobile hospital, called MED-1, was designed by Blackwell and built with a grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. One of the tractor-trailers has slide-out walls and creates a 14-bed hospital complete with operating rooms, radiology, pharmacy and telecommunications. The second truck carries a tent system that, when deployed, can accommodate an additional 85 beds.
Staff Writer Nichole Monroe Bell contributed to this article.
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