RALEIGH – The nation’s only full-service civilian mobile hospital will be mobilized and set up next week at the Western North Carolina Agriculture Center in Fletcher to test deployment skills for the hospital’s logistical support personnel and provide valuable training for surgeons, and volunteers.

The National Mobile Disaster Hospital is a federally owned asset that is maintained by the N.C. Office of Emergency Medical Services, part of the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services.

The hospital is available to provide scalable hospital services to a community whose own hospital is either overwhelmed by a disaster or damaged and in need of assistance to continue operations while repairs are made.

The rapid response elements will travel in 13 tractor trailers from a storage facility in western North Carolina to the Agriculture Center where the hospital’s Logistical Support Team will unpack and set up on March 20. The equipment will be operational March 21, and ready for training.

Elements to be set up include:
• Seven-bed major emergency department
• 10-bed critical care holding area
• Full digital X-ray unit
• Small lab and blood bank
• Two operating rooms
• Surgical processing with an autoclave and surgical equipment
• A central medical supply with stores enough to sustain 72 continuous hours of operation
• A morgue
• An administrative and command and control unit

The hospital is made functional through partnerships with Mission Health of Asheville, N.C. Baptist Men’s Disaster Relief Ministry, Spevco Custom Vehicles of Pfafftown, N.C., and Western Shelter of Eugene, Ore.

WHAT: Logistics deployment of the National Mobile Disaster Hospital

WHERE: Western North Carolina Agriculture Center, 1301 Fanning Bridge Road, Fletcher, N.C.

WHEN: Wednesday, March 21, 2012