Maryland Sending Health Care Professionals, Incident Managers to New Jersey and New York to Aid Emergency Medical Response

REISTERSTOWN, MD (November 4, 2012) – About 50 Maryland healthcare professionals are working out of Brooklyn, NY, to assist survivors of Hurricane Sandy in New York and New Jersey. Meanwhile, a team of 12 emergency medical services professionals from the Baltimore region will leave from Millersville in Anne Arundel County early tomorrow to help coordinate EMS response in New Jersey.

The healthcare professionals, including doctors, nurses, paramedics and logistics professionals, are members of the Maryland Disaster Medical Assistance team (DMAT) and left Maryland on Saturday. They have been working in Federal Medical Shelter Operations and Special Need Centers in Manhattan, built and staffed Federal Medical Stations, supported Emergency Departments in hospitals that are able to open, staffed a mobile hospital in the Rockaways section of New York City and are setting up a mobile hospital in New Jersey to help support special need and sub acute patients.

They are one of 18 DMAT teams from around the country that are helping to provide medical care for survivors of Hurricane Sandy in New Jersey and New York.

The 12 EMS professionals leaving tomorrow morning for Newark, NJ, will form two six-person Incident Management Teams (IMT) and will assist with resource management to provide tracking and accountability of personnel, assets, and requests. This Baltimore Regional IMT includes EMS staff from the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services System (MIEMSS), Baltimore City and Anne Arundel and Howard counties..

The IMT will work with New Jersey Multi-Agency Coordination Center (MACC) personnel to assist with the coordination of EMS resources from many different areas who have deployed to the area and will provide situational awareness, communicate with EMS field units, and plan for future needs and operations.

They join other Maryland responders who have been providing assistance to hard-hit areas to Maryland’s north. Twenty-five troopers from the Maryland State Police have been assisting local law enforcement in New Jersey, while four employees from Baltimore City are in Albany, helping the staff at the New York State Emergency Operations Center. Also, 10 two-person advanced life support ambulances and three supervisors went to New Jersey on Thursday and are providing EMS service in northern New Jersey.