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A Summary Of Suggestions For NICU Evacuation

By Gregory Ward


There have been frequent disasters in the past years that have forced infirmaries to evacuate their patients to safer facilities. The intensive care unit has vulnerable patients that ought to be managed with the utmost care and with a high level of expertise. One of the most challenging processes during disasters is NICU evacuation. Here, patients are vulnerable and must be handled by trained personnel to prevent further tragedies. Hence, the staffs in this unit must receive proper training with the knowledge to handle the equipment. This article has given a synopsis of different proposals during the evacuation period.

Agreements ought to be made between different parties. For instance, an agreement should be between the hospital with the incident and other healthcare facilities. This ensures that the patients are received in these facilities without compromise. Again, an agreement between the hospital and transport agencies is vital to confirm that proper transport services will be available during this critical time.

Infirmaries need to have sufficient machines or equipment for removing the patients. They should also train their staffs on disaster awareness to ensure the team can take measurable procedures to keep patients safe during this complex process. A coordination leader must also be available on the ground for categorization of patients and communication with the receiving ends on the procedures.

Governing bodies should be included during this process. Their primary duty will be providing proper timing to undertake this process and give orders on the evacuation. As such, infirmaries must establish appropriate channels of communication. The mechanism must be reliable to make sure that the board of administration is contacted on time and orders are given promptly. This way, there will be no distractions on the ground. The authority is there to give orders on the best time for transporting the NICU patients before the overall population.

Ventilators with uninterrupted electric power and oxygen flow should be available for patients with respiratory problems. This is to make sure that their function is maintained during the evacuating period and while in the shelter. The equipment must be portable and able to run on a low flow of oxygen. These machines ought to be easy to operate and safe for both the staff and patients.

Should there be adequate time for the evacuation, it is advisable to remove the critically ill patients first before going for the less-sick ones. This will not only make it easy for transport but will also give the receiving facilities time to categorize these patients and get a suitable location for them based on the diseases or medical needs.

It is recommended to conduct preparations of a patient before they are transported. This means that the condition of a person must be noted before transportation so that any changes that may come later are easily recognized and addressed. Preparations can include initial stabilization, diagnostic procedures, and methods of damage control, among others.

The medical details of a patient ought to be available in the receiving end. This is to confirm that the receiving hospitals can continue caring for the received patients. If an electronic record is not available, the hospital must produce a paper record containing the problem list and patient identification. This way, it becomes easy to handle patients.




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