Medical Aid Disaster Stations Proposed

Three years after the San Fernando Valley was awakened with a predawn temblor, a county supervisor asked county officials to assess the feasibility of establishing medical aid stations to respond in case of another major disaster.

Board of Supervisors Chairman Zev Yaroslavsky asked Friday that the chief administration office and the Department of Health Services study the costs and possible locations of a standing network of stations throughout the county.

“We realize there may be a cost and we’re asking [officials] to look at the situation and assess the needs and tell us how many we might need,” said Joel Bellman, an aide to Yaroslavsky.

The idea--which will be discussed Tuesday at the Board of Supervisors meeting--grew out of the offer of a donation from the Disaster Medical Assistance Corporation, a private business, to provide the county with containers of disaster medical supplies in exchange for the opportunity to advertise corporate sponsors on them.

According to Yaroslavsky’s proposal, these containers would be the basis for a network of fully equipped and staffed sites, possibly located in fire stations. They would be available to treat the sick and injured during a natural disaster to lighten the load expected at major hospitals.

“The concern was that without a standing infrastructure of sites that could respond to immediate medical needs in a disaster, the medical hospital would quickly become overwhelmed,” said Bellman.

Mindful of the several small disaster response teams that have sprouted up throughout the county since the Northridge earthquake, Bellman said these county stations would be more established.

“The idea is to create a system, put something in place that is not an ad hoc thing,” Bellman said.