{"id":26502,"date":"2020-05-07T18:21:25","date_gmt":"2020-05-07T22:21:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=26502"},"modified":"2020-05-07T18:21:31","modified_gmt":"2020-05-07T22:21:31","slug":"southlakes-field-hospitals-transformed-into-covid-19-assessment-centres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/southlakes-field-hospitals-transformed-into-covid-19-assessment-centres\/","title":{"rendered":"Southlake\u2019s field hospitals transformed into COVID-19 assessment centres"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Southlake Regional Health Centre moved COVID-19 testing\ninto on-site field hospitals on Thursday, April 30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These field hospitals, made possible by two generous\ncommunity donors through the Southlake Regional Health Centre Foundation, can\nhouse up to 30 patients and are fully equipped with heating, air conditioning\nand power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shifting the assessment centres to the field tents has\nhelped free up Southlake\u2019s paramedic and ambulance garage which has, since the\nopening of a local assessment centre, been a hub for testing. It will also help\nSouthlake\u2019s Emergency Department get back up to speed for non-COVID patients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the things we looked at back in early February\nwas the potential of needing additional space and having that additional surge\ncapacity and, in particular with infectious disease, do we have enough negative\npressure environments where we can control the air and the environment?\u201d says\nStephen Trafford, Manager of Emergency and Disaster Preparedness, for\nSouthlake. \u201cThese shelters were purchased not only for the fact it comes with\nnegative pressure air and a number of other features, but it is really\nmultifunctional and multipurpose. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor now, we\u2019re using one [of the two tents] as an\nassessment centre. We knew we needed to come up with something a little more\nlong-term. Since we don\u2019t know how long this is going to go on for, we decided\nto move the assessment centre right to the shelters. Having said that, they are\nmultifunctional. If we decide a week or a month from now that we need them for\nsomething else, whether it is to have patients out there on stretchers or\nwhether we use it for some other capacity, we have that option now to be able\nto use it and based on the operational need.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tents look simple from the outside, but, as they are\ndesigned for a healthcare environment, they are far more complex than they\nappear. They are designed to be able to allow procedures to be performed and\ncome equipped with everything to make that happen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRegardless of what we\u2019re doing today, tomorrow we might\nbe doing some other medical procedure,\u201d says Trafford. \u201cHaving all of the\namenities or as close as possible out in that shelter is really kind of what\nmakes this thing work. It is really no different than some other industries\nlike the military. I am a reservist and we operate in these types of facilities\nin remote areas and even though it is not a remote environment, we are only 50m\naway from the building and traditionally there can be no infrastructure [in\nmilitary situations] that can help support something like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to be looking to see if it changes our rate\nor speed of testing. Certainly, with the drive-thru there are only so many cars\nthat can get in the queue outside the emergency department. We\u2019re hoping that\nwith this set up, people will get out of their vehicles and into the shelter.\nWe have six pods set up right now. At any given point, we can have six people\nbeing tested and we believe that that will actually probably speed up the\nprocess for us a little bit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe want to reassure the community that Southlake continues to be a safe environment. We want people if they need our services to come and be confident that they will be safe in our environments and their medical conditions will be addressed. That goes for both the shelters and the actual hospital itself. You should feel comfortable and confident that if you need testing, you can come in, our staff will treat you, keep you safe, and whatever services are required you will get.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Southlake Regional Health Centre moved COVID-19 testing into on-site field hospitals on Thursday, April 30. These field hospitals, made possible by two generous community donors through the Southlake Regional Health Centre Foundation, can house up to 30 patients and are fully equipped with heating, air conditioning and power. Shifting the assessment centres to the field […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/2020-05-07-05.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6Ts","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-24 21:36:54","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}