Living up to its status as a premier UAE medical institution, Tawam Hospital, in affiliation with Johns Hopkins Medicine and part of the SEHA healthcare system, held rigorous crisis scenario training drills for its staff this weekend, designed to further enhance their skills in responding to emergency situations.

Strategically held over the weekend to ensure that systems and teams were ready to respond on any given day, Tawam Hospital staff participated in disaster preparedness drills with multi emergency codes from the a relatively small scale incident like Code Red (fire) to full scale emergency situation Code Green [patients evacuation] including Code Blue (adult cardiac arrest).

The exercise was designed to test staff response and abilities in escalating Code Red to Code Green and dealing with a stressful situation with limited resources. Having only two nurses on duty after working hours, a fire breaks out in the unit resulting in accumulating thick smoke. The staff, move patients to safe areas [mock patients], raise the alarm and initiate code red. As aid arrives from the neighboring units, the staff initiates code green and evacuate the patients, vertically and horizontally to emergency department and other units. The technical units and EHS Department, participation was essential in extinguishing the fire, closing HVAC system and the main oxygen valve in close coordination with the Nursing Supervisor.

The exercise objective was to minimize any potential loss of life and property in cases of internal fire incidents. In addition to that, the scenario was designed to test staff ability to contain the fire, rescue and protect both patients and staff, implement an internal emergency management plan by conducting an orderly evacuation and effectively communicate the situation to staff, patients and public as well as investigate and document the details of the incident.

It is very important to constantly improve the skills of our staff to elevate their disaster preparedness, knowledge and response. When you deal with human lives, there is hardly a room for error or guesswork. We must always be alert, calm and ready to face critical situations and manage their consequences. Through these regular training exercises, our team at Tawam gain confidence and become more prepared and build up a mature and reliable disaster management system to respond to real life event, said Ahmed Malalla Al Ali, Risk & Disaster Program Manager, Tawam Hospital.

Our exercise this weekend was one of the most thorough and varied training sessions we have undertaken. It is this training and rigor which also helps to assure our patients and communities that we are more than capable of taking the best possible care of them in the worst possible situations, Schaffer added.

Tawam Hospital is part of the SEHA Health System owned and operated by Abu Dhabi Health Services Company (SEHA) which is responsible for the curative activities of all the public hospitals and clinics of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.