First mobile hospital in Santa Cruz

California is no stranger to natural disasters… But Santa Cruz county is taking the next step in being medically prepared for them.

The county was just given their first mobile hospital by the state.

“The goal is to be ready for anything.” That’s Medical Reserve Coordinator, Nancy Yellin describing what the county wants to achieve with the new mobile hospital units. The county was given 6 of these from the state. Crews were out today at the Watsonville Community Hospital training with the multifunctional units.

Markell Pierce is the Program Manager for Emergency Medical Services. He says, “We can
put these up anywhere, we’ve set them up on the piers, along the bay, we’ve set them up in the hillside in Monterey.”

In the event of an emergency these tents can be put up with extreme speed. Today, it only took 40 minutes. One of the main purposes is providing the emergency response anywhere. Brenda Brenner the Emergency Medical Services Administrator for Santa Cruz county says, “what’s great about these tents is we can load them on a flatbed truck and drive them to where they are needed and set them up wherever there is enough space to do that.

While normal hospitals can lose power during a storm, these function off a high powered generator… which in the event of severe weather will come in handy.

“In the event that we have some sort of disaster where we have critical infrastructure that is damaged, and we want to make sure we can provide the necessary medical care to the members of the public.” -Brenda Brenner

The mobile hospitals are staffed with a medical reserve team- which is still being put together.

Nancy Yellin, the Medical Reserve Coordinator says, “We are looking for respiratory therapists. Uhm, we have a lot of nurse and EMT’s already, but we are looking for other specialties also.”

The medical reserve is looking for others qualified in medical fields.

If interested contact: 831-479-7226