County plans for emergency medical dispensing

YATES COUNTY--The Yates County Office of Public Health will be holding a "Full Scale Medical Countermeasure Point of Dispensing" drill at the Dundee Central School gymnasium Friday, April 27. Margaret Brinn of Yates County Public Health said the event will run from 1 to 3 p.m. Brinn said Public Health is looking for volunteers to help simulate how long it would take to dispense medication to a sample population in the case of an emergency.
The purpose of the event is to test the county's emergency preparedness plan. While the drill will only take place at the Dundee gymnasium, the drill will test the department's ability to dispense medical supplies to the entire Yates County population. The exercise is designed to simulate a response to a medical emergency like an anthrax outbreak, hurricane, radiological dispersal device or nuclear detonation.
The exercise allows Yates Public Health to show they are capable of dispensing the proper medical supplies in the event of an actual emergency.
Brinn said they would like to be able to process 366 medical dispensing transactions in 90 minutes. According to Yates Public Health, since their goal is to simulate 366 medical dispensings, some volunteers may go through the process more than once if necessary. Participants must be old enough to act as an adult in an emergency situation during the drill. Brinn said the last time a simulation like this was conducted in the county was back in 2012 and was on a smaller scale. This simulation is part of local planning standards outlined by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. A one-time walk through would take volunteers 15 to 30 minutes.
For more, call 315-536-5160 or email publichealth@yatescounty.org.