Wednesday morning a special agreement was signed with the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony. The ceremony, held at the Reno Sparks Tribal Health Center, is considered historic. Daniel Thayer, the Emergency Response Coordinator for the Reno Sparks Indian Colony explains why - "This would be the first agreement signing between a tribe and a county within the state of Nevada for a Point Of Dispensing."
A Point Of Dispensing or P.O.D. is a location where community members turn in case of a medical epidemic - such as a flu or Zika virus outbreak, or a bio-terrorism attack. "To push out large amounts of medication, prophylactic medications to the community in a very short amount of time with the intent of trying to protect the community as much as possible," says Stephen Shipman, Washoe County’s Public Health Emergency Response Coordinator .
In an emergency those vaccines have to be administered to the public within 48 hours. And the Reno Sparks Tribal Health Center is prepared to do just that. “To work and train together if there is such an event, that basically we're gonna know the resources, we're gonna know the points of contact and hopefully all will go good during an emergency,” says Thayer.
Collaborations like this one are also in place with local hospitals and first responders in Washoe County, but global terrorism threats demand all communities be better prepared.
"9/11 was the door opening that caught us on one knee," says Thayer.
"It's one of those things where it takes time. You have to identify community partners and stakeholders - individuals that have the capacity - because, again, we're talking medical,” says Shipman. “So, whenever you're dealing with a medical push out you have to have organizations that are capable of doing that.”
And the facility is fully qualified. The Reno Sparks Tribal Health Center can serve 10,000 patients in an emergency.
For more information, go to -
http://www.rsic.org/rsic-services/reno-sparks-tribal-health-center/
