Disaster Relief Nurses train for biological attack

As President George Bush contemplates the case for war against Iraq and reports of a US military build up in the Middle East gather apace, at least one ally in the 'war against terror' will be preparing for disaster.

For tomorrow Draperstown will be the scene of the largest ever disaster simulation exercise where nursing students will be placed at the centre of a mock biological weapons attack.

Organised by the University of Ulster’s (UU) Disaster Relief Nursing course and local healthcare trusts, the training day will attempt to create a Northern Ireland that has been struck by biological warfare, forcing thousands to flee to camps for displaced persons in the countryside.

Actors, UU nursing students and members of the public will be brought to the field hospital suffering from conditions such as anthrax inhalation, burns, head fractures, gunshot wounds, influenza, psychological distress and separation anxiety.

A camp has been set up near the Rural College, Draperstown, manned by 50 nurses from the UU’s Disaster Relief Nursing programme and emergency care nursing staff from across Northern Ireland is close by.

Conditions will replicate as closely as possible those in a disaster situation. Nurses will act exactly as they would if faced with a real bio-terrorist threat.

The exercise will be staggered so that there will be a steady influx of patients as well as “emergency scenarios”, which will involved high numbers of casualties being rushed in en mass.

Pat Deeny, Course Director of the Disaster Relief Nursing Programme at UU said: “The idea is to gauge how the emergency nursing services would cope in the case of a biological disaster. Northern Ireland is viewed by other countries as a place well geared to coping with disaster, this exercise however will assist participants to evaluate how ready we really are.

“We have students from a national and international background training on this course who will go on to become nursing leaders within the world’s disaster zones. "We aim to produce some of the most capable and highly trained nurses in the world when it comes to dealing with disaster relief.”

Earlier this week the first-ever nurses with a postgraduate qualification in Disaster Relief Nursing graduated from the programme at a ceremony in Magee.

(GMcG)