Personnel from the Wisconsin-1 Disaster Medical Assistance Team (WI-1 DMAT) are contributing to relief efforts for East Coast residents impacted by Hurricane Sandy.
The team, organized by Dr. Jason Liu, associate professor of emergency medicine and associate EMS medical director at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW), includes one doctor, two nurses and three paramedics from Wisconsin. They have been placed in Middlesex, New Jersey, at a 250-bed, makeshift federal hospital station for patients and individuals from nursing homes.
The team will work in New Jersey for up to two weeks and could be replaced by other WI-1 DMAT staff. Liu and other MCW staff are both arranging the field operations of the team out East and preparing for the possibility of sending more staff including MCW faculty and more than 70 other Wisconsin medical volunteers.
This mission is WI-1 DMAT’s first. The unit is part of a federal program that provides medical resources to regions affected by large-scale emergencies. MCW, Froedtert Hospital, Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics, and the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health represent academic partners of WI-1 DMAT.
“MCW was instrumental in convincing the state and federal governments that an emergency response team could be formed in Wisconsin, and this first mission is another historic milestone,” said Liu. “This type of response is what WI-1 DMAT was built and trained for, and we can be proud of our state’s contribution to the relief efforts.”
