Hospitals police responsibilities

Facilities which treat, store or dispose of hazardous wastes must, under 40 CFR 264 and 265, develop emergency plans to minimize hazards to human health and the environment in the event of fire, explosion, or chemical release into the environment. A detailed plan of action is required, which considers such events and details arrangements with local police, fire, hospital, emergency response teams. The plan should list the name of the emergency coordinator(s), emergency equipment, and detail the evacuation plan. 

The plan must describe arrangements agreed to by local police departments, fire departments, hospitals, contractors, and state and local emergency response teams to coordinate emergency scr iccs... 

Describe the key elements of your hospital s emergency preparedness and response roles and polices to other agencies and community partners. 

After-action reports on the Tokyo subway incident (Obu, 1996 Olson, 1996 Yanagisawa, 1996) provide an example of the value of communication between the law enforcement and medical communities as well as an example of a missed opportunity for communication within the medical community that might have made the medical response even more effective than it was. Japanese police had apparently been planning a raid on Aum Shinrikyo facilities throughout Japan, and for that reason the government had ordered medical supplies, including nerve agent antidotes, not normally stocked in quantity by hospitals (anonymous comments in Obu, 1996). One of the reasons for the raids was the suspected involvement of the Aum Shinrikyo in a previous toxic gas incident in the city of Matsumoto almost a year before the Tokyo attack (Morita et al., 1995). The release in that city in 1994 of what was subsequently identified as... 

The organization of delivery and availability of adequate supplies of the cyanide antidote kit must be achieved. Studies of stockpile control and time necessary for the delivery to prehospital, hospital, and health departments should be performed for each region. Specifically, a study should be designed to describe the most effective response system for a mass-casualty event. These studies must emphasize an integrated analysis based on the potential of regional health, police, andfire personnel. 

Contact hospital security police (ward Emergency Response Team, ERT)... 

The attack involved five different underground trains, all of which were scheduled to arrive between 0800 and 0810 h on Kasumigaseki station, close to the Tokyo National Police Agency and the Japanese Finance Ministry. The city fire department, who have responsibility for toxic agent releases, was informed within 15 min of the attack which in the event involved 15 metro stations. The hospitals in the area were notified that there had been a gas explosion and were prepared to receive patients with bums, blast injury and carbon monoxide poisoning. The confusion about the nature of the event remained for nearly an hour during which... 

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