Medical teams practice halting flu at Phuket airport
PHUKET: Dozens of doctors and nurses from both public and private hospitals spent this morning (June 14) at Phuket International Airport, rehearsing procedures for dealing with an aircraft arriving with possible victims of deadly flu on board.
Tanyaluk Sakoot
Thursday 14 June 2012, 06:01PM
The training session was aimed at dealing with all subtypes of HxNy influenza, which includes such killers as Spanish flu, Asian flu, bird flu and swine flu.
Dr Wiwat Seetamanotch, a doctor with the Provincial Health Department, explained, “The training session is aimed at protecting the other passengers and Phuket.”
After the “call” came in to the control tower, the emergency medical team, wearing hazmat (hazardous material) suits prepared an area for screening passengers on the aircraft.
For this morning’s exercise, there was even an aircraft full of volunteer “passengers”.
Some of the medical team entered this and separated the passengers into green, yellow and red sectors – with green wristbands for those sitting far from the “sick” passenger, yellow for those sitting close to him, and red for the victim himself.
On the ground, both green and yellow passengers received an alcohol gel to clean their hands and a health information card, and were scanned with a Thermoscanner, which detects body temperature.
While the “red” passenger was rushed to hospital, the “yellows” were interviewed about their travels in the past 15 days, were rescreened with the Thermoscanner, underwent chest X-rays, and were then quarantined in a special negative-air-pressure room in hospital.
Finally, the medical team spray-disinfected the aircraft and the screening area in the airport.
