Volunteers to act as patients are needed for a regional full-scale exercise to test the dispensing of essential medicine and medical supplies in case of disaster.
This exercise will provide an opportunity for the City of Midland and other agencies to evaluate organizational performance of current response plans and capabilities for a medical countermeasure incident in Public Health Service Regions 9 and 10.
Anyone involved in emergency management, public safety, law enforcement, fire service, emergency medical services, public works, government/administration, hazardous materials response, health care and public health is invited to sign up to act as a patient for the drill. The exercise will take place from 8:30-11 a.m. on Saturday, April 25 at the Midland Health and Senior Services center located at 3303 W. Illinois Ave.
The Health & Senior Services center will be set up as a mock "point of dispensing," or POD, which is set up to distribute medicine, vaccine and medical supplies from the Strategic National Stockpile. The stockpile is designed to protect the American public if there is a public health emergency -- such as a terrorist attack, flu outbreak, or natural disaster -- that's severe enough to cause local supplies to run out. Each state has plans to receive and distribute SNS supplies to local communities as quickly as possible.
For more information, please contact John Floyd at 432-681-7648 or jfloyd@midlandtexas.gov.
###Media Contact: Health Manager Celestino "Sal" Garcia