K.H.M.H. deals with casualties
The police were not the only ones under pressure on Wednesday night. As officers worked to maintain law and order on the city’s southside, on the northside the nurses and doctors at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital were busy tending to the wounded as they started arriving at the Accident and Emergency Ward.
Dr. Fernando Cuellar, Dir., Medical Services, KHMH
?Unfortunately we received a total of twenty-seven cases, which was a direct consequence of the unrest. At the same time of course, we would be receiving other sick people from seizures to asthmatics and so forth. So to answer your question, again it would be twenty-seven total. Out of that twenty-seven, we had four gunshot victims. One of them seriously injured, a gunshot to the head; the others were just basically flesh wounds. The other types of injuries were cuts and bruises and so forth.?
Jacqueline Woods
?Was the hospital prepared to handle so many cases??
Dr. Fernando Cuellar
?We do have a Mass Casualty Plan, but we must say that since this was a chaotic situation in the sense that people arrived on their own, spontaneously being brought by other people, the plan does not really to the detail addresses everything as compared to for example we would have one single accident. So we did had to be customizing as we go along, adjusting as we go along. But we had enough resources, human, materials and so forth. The only unfortunate thing we don?t have at the Karl Heusner, which we have been fighting for of course is proper imaging. So I hope that anybody who hears us in terms of authority will be able to assist Karl Heusner in getting proper imaging in terms of CAT-Scans and so forth.?
Jacqueline Woods
?As a result of what occurred last night, will the hospital have additional staff in place??
Dr. Fernando Cuellar
?Yes, we have reinforced the emergency room. Physicians, we now have a third physician on site. Then we have a first pool of four other physicians that we will be calling in if necessary. And if really necessary then get the whole staff out, which is about forty physicians. At the same time, the nurses are doing that readjustments and any other technical person that needs to be here, supported of course by the administrative people who came out last night to help out.?
The patient who was shot in the back of the head has been identified as twenty-two year old Jermaine Francisco Hernandez. Hernandez, who remains in an unconscious state, was found by police around nine last night lying on the ground near the corner of King and West Street. Authorities say they do not know who shot Hernandez and are investigating.
