Published: May 11, 2008 09:22 pm            

Putting plans in place

It’s part of an ongoing process here in Navarro County that many counties don’t have happening.

Planning for the worst.

Leaders from many different areas and responsibilities gathered at Navarro County’s Emergency Operations Center Friday, getting together to hear about how a “Point of Distribution” system — also known as a POD system — works for delivering vaccines and antibiotics in the case of a pandemic disease situation or if some kind of foreign substance caused widespread health issues.

Francisco San Miguel of the North Central Texas Council of Government’s Department of Emergency Preparedness gave the overview presentation of the POD system.

“A POD is basically a treatment center, to treat those not affect by the pandemic or the introduced agent,” San Miguel said. “It’s all about getting treatment to that unaffected population within 48 hours.”

It’s about keeping the healthy, healthy in a time of crisis.

The typical delivery time is set at 12 hours, but San Miguel said the county’s proximity to the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex would likely make that delivery time shorter.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a pandemic can start when three conditions have been met:

• the emergence of a disease new to the population.

• the agent infects humans, causing serious illness.

• the agent spreads easily and sustainably among humans.

The Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Ga. is the oversight agency for the program for the federal government, San Miguel said. But while the framework is set up by the Feds, it’s local authorities who decide the details of how the total package is delivered.

“We give you the skeleton, you have to provide the meat,” he said. “It’s up to you how you want to run it.”

That included where to place local officials in the command chain, who is in the emergency operations center during the crisis, who’s in the field at the PODs, and what the best personnel are for the different sites.

The recommendation for determining the number of POD sites is to have one POD per 10,000 population, San Miguel said.

The process of moving people through an individual POD starts with receiving information at the door and answering questions that the answers determine how they are handled. Vaccines and other medications are distributed at a certain point in the process and instructions on their use given, before they are checked to make sure all informational paperwork leaves with them.

Those that arrive at a POD site already sick are directed to the proper medical facilities.

Those attending the Friday session included: Eric Meyers Jr., the county’s emergency management coordinator; County Judge H.M. Davenport; Corsicana Fire Chief Donald McMullan, who is the city’s emergency management coordinator; Emily Carroll and Wendy Katz from the county’s health department; Becky Burns, Mildred ISD assistant superintendent; Sharon Thomas and Nelda Welch from Navarro Regional Hospital; and Chief Deputy Mike Cox from the sheriff’s department.

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Loyd Cook may be reached via e-mail at lcook@corsicanadailysun.com

        

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