Portable 100-bed facility named in memory of Oxford woman
HARTFORD, Conn. – Connecticut’s disaster preparedness takes another leap forward with the purchase of a state-of-the-art 100-bed mobile field hospital, named in honor of a Connecticut woman who died due to inhalational anthrax.
The Ottilie W. Lundgren Memorial Field Hospital assembles in hours, and can be ready to triage and treat hundreds of patients during any public health emergency.
“At any given moment, the Ottilie W. Lundgren Memorial Field Hospital can be removed from storage and set-up, either where we stand today, or anywhere in Connecticut,” said DPH Commissioner J. Robert Galvin. “The Lundgren Hospital comes complete with medical equipment, and is staffed by the dedicated volunteers of the Disaster Medical Assistance Team, or DMAT, to triage and treat patients who may become sick or injured as a result of a man-made or natural disaster.”
“Ottilie Lundgren represents all of us,” Commissioner Galvin said, referring to the 94-year-old woman who was the only Connecticut resident to die in the anthrax attacks of 2001. “She lived a quiet life in rural Connecticut – far from where terror is supposed to strike. Her untimely death proved that terrorism knows no bounds, and that our state plays an important role in responding to such incidents. Naming this hospital in her honor allows us to forever remember Mrs. Lundgren’s long life, and remain cognizant that her untimely death lead to the state’s ability to better protect its residents.”
The Ottilie W. Lundgren Memorial Field Hospital is a multi-functional facility providing bed surge capacity, isolation capacity and an emergency/disaster medicine training facility for the healthcare delivery workforce, both civilian and military. It is deployable as a flexible configuration of 25 bed units that can be operated jointly or independently of one another to provide triage and treatment anywhere in the state in the event of a mass casualty, or to support an acute care hospital after catastrophic structural or mechanical failure. During long-term deployments, resources from the state’s 31 acute care facilities will staff the hospital.
The mobile unit enables medical personnel to serve patients with infectious disease, as well as those with injuries suffered as a result of natural disasters or terrorist events.
“At any given moment, Connecticut could be faced with a disaster that results in an overwhelming number of sick or injured. The mobile field hospital is designed to alleviate the stresses that natural and man-made disasters can bring to bear upon our statewide urgent care system,” stated Leonard Guercia, DPH Operations Branch Chief. “This mobile hospital is a powerful new tool in the public health emergency preparedness arsenal.”