EIGHT NUHEALTH STAFF MEMBERS ATTEND HOMELAND SECURITY TRAINING
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 22, 2013
PRESS CONTACT:
Shelley Lotenberg
shelley@numc.edu
516-572-6055
EIGHT NUHEALTH STAFF MEMBERS ATTEND HOMELAND SECURITY TRAINING
East Meadow, NY…….Eight NuHealth staff members from the Nassau University Medical Center recently completed training offered by the Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP), in Anniston, Ala. The CDP is operated by the United States Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency and is the only federally-chartered Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) training facility in the nation.
“The training was intense, but well worth it. There was a full schedule each of the five days that we attended, comprised of hands on and classroom learning. The facility was incredible in regards to the equipment that was available, the comfort of the classroom and breakout rooms for group exercises and the staff was amazing – full of knowledge, welcome to questions and wanted to make sure we got the most out of our experience,” said Mary Harms, part of NuHealth’s emergency management team, a paramedic and captain of the Wantagh Fire Department, as well as serving as liaison between the Nassau University Medical Center and the EMS community. “It was an exciting experience, on one of the days, to learn how to set up a decontamination area and clean contaminated patients in order to protect our hospital and patients.”
The CDP develops and delivers advanced training for emergency response providers, emergency managers, and other government officials from state, local, and tribal governments. The CDP offers more than 50 training courses focusing on incident management, mass casualty response, and emergency response to a catastrophic natural disaster or terrorist act. Training at the CDP campus is federally funded at no cost to state, local, and tribal emergency response professionals or their agency.
Resident training at the CDP includes healthcare and public health courses at the Noble Training Facility, the nation’s only hospital dedicated to training healthcare professionals in disaster preparedness and response.
A number of resident training courses culminate at the CDP’s Chemical, Ordnance, Biological and Radiological Training Facility (COBRA). The COBRA is the nation’s only facility featuring civilian training exercises in a true toxic environment using chemical agents and nonpathogenic biological materials. The advanced hands-on training enables responders to effectively prevent, respond to, and recover from real-world incidents involving acts of terrorism and other hazardous materials.
Responders participating in CDP training gain critical skills and confidence to respond effectively to local incidents or potential WMD events. Information about CDP training programs can be found at http://cdp.dhs.gov.
Photo left to right: Dr. Mark Fonrose, Mary Harms, Kim Edwards, Lisa McLoughlin, Ada Feng, Chanukka Smith, George Araujo and Judy Eisele -LaPlante.
ABOUT NUHEALTH
NuHealth is a Long Island health care organization delivering essential medical care and disease and lifestyle management to everyone at every stage of life. Also known as Nassau Health Care Corporation, NuHealth is a public benefit corporation managing the operations of Nassau Medical Center, A. Holly Patterson Extended Care and a network of Family Health Centers that bring primary and specialty care out into the community. By emphasizing wellness, cultural sensitivity and collaborative efforts with the North Shore-LIJ Health System, NuHealth is working to make good care more affordable and easier to access.
For more information about NuHealth or its Centers of Care, visit www.nuhealth.net.