Bates County Memorial Hospital ready to assist in Joplin disaster

St.John's Hospital in Joplin Mo.

The following is an excerpt of information received from the Missouri Hospital Association concerning the tornado in Joplin to all Missouri hospitals. Bates County Memorial Hospital has openly agreed to provide assistance as needed:

As you are probably aware, St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Joplin, as well as the community of Joplin, was damaged by a severe tornado yesterday evening. Although many news stations are calling for medical personnel to help, please advise your staff to adhere to protocols in place through the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services and the Missouri Emergency Operations Center. We are in constant contact with the Disaster Situation Room at the department.

The Disaster Medical Team has been deployed. Volunteers will be deployed through the Show Me Response system. Resources also have been deployed from Springfield. Updates are available and are most reliable through EMSytem, which is in every Missouri hospital, response unit and in local public health offices.

 As of this morning, here is what has been done-

·     A temporary hospital has been set up at Joplin Memorial Hall 212 West 8^th Street.  

·         A morgue as been set up at Mason Woodard (sp) at 3001 E 7^th. 

·         Emergency Medical Services staging is  set up at 7th and Virginia.

·         Trailers with communication equipment and supplies are being sent to Joplin. The trailer in Joplin was destroyed and the ones in Springfield are already in use or anticipated to be used.

·         Critical supplies needed are water and sterile supplies. Water is being handled, we may be reaching out to the hospitals for the sterile supplies and other identified supplies.

·         The initial wave of patient movement out of Joplin is largely complete but it is expected that with daylight they will have another surge of patients. We are assessing the bed and trauma capability of all hospitals statewide within the next few minutes.

There's no word about need for additional staff yet. There are multitudes of EMS and approximately 40 DMAT on scene. However, people will need rest. It appears the Show-Me Response volunteer pool may be formally activated this morning.

Again, BCMH is awaiting word on the need for additional response. Our thanks to the hospital for sharing this information.