Fresenius Medical Care is Ready to Respond to this Season’s Tornados, Hurricanes, Floods and Other Weather Emergencies
Advance
Planning Ensures that Dialysis Patients Can Continue Life-Sustaining Treatments
After Disaster Strikes
WALTHAM,
Mass. – May 21, 2014 – When a deadly tornado with
winds up to 200 miles per hour swept through Louisville, Miss., on April 28,
nine patients and five staff members were inside the Fresenius Medical Care
Winston County dialysis clinic. The building sustained extensive damage to its
windows, walls and roof, but no patients or staff were injured. As the storm
subsided, staff members quickly began rolling out emergency plans to treat the
clinic’s patients at other nearby facilities while their own facility is being
repaired.
The tornados that hit Louisville and nearly
a dozen other Mississippi locales – as well as the approaching Atlantic
hurricane season, which begins June 1 – provide vivid reminders of the
importance of being prepared for natural disasters. While tornados, hurricanes,
floods and other emergencies can wreak havoc on entire communities, they pose
an especially serious health threat to dialysis patients with end-stage renal
disease (ESRD), who need life-sustaining treatment typically three times a week
to remove waste products and extra fluids from their blood after their kidneys
have failed.
Fresenius Medical Care North America
(FMCNA), the nation’s leading network of dialysis facilities, invests heavily
in emergency response planning and preparation to be ready for events that could
potentially interrupt treatments for its more than 170,000 U.S. patients. The
company’s Disaster Response Team works closely with local governments and
community organizations to ensure that patients can continue to receive
treatments, medical supplies, medicines and lab services during emergencies.
And while most of its activity occurs during storm season, the disaster team
works year round to anticipate potential problems and develop response
strategies.
“We’re dedicated to responding effectively
and efficiently to provide emergency care for our staff and patients during
times of crisis,” says Bill Numbers, FMCNA’s senior vice president of
operations support and incident commander for disaster response and planning.
“Our response has been tested time and time again – from Hurricanes Sandy, Ike
and Katrina, to this year’s tornados in Mississippi – and we continue to learn
from each new event, which enables us to respond even better the next time.”
Less than 100 miles from the Louisville
clinic, just outside of Jackson, Miss., a company warehouse serves as a crisis
staging area and logistical command center to respond to disasters across the
United States. Like several other strategically located FMCNA facilities, it is
home to a fleet of fully-equipped portable temporary housing and supply
trailers, as well as generators, fuel, food and medical supplies that can be
quickly deployed to assist clinics and staff members whose homes have been
affected, following a natural disaster.
On May 20 and 21, the Jackson facility will
host FMCNA’s annual Disaster Preparation Summit, which will provide
emergency-response training to company managers and emergency specialists from
across the country. FMCNA also consistently reviews, revises and updates its
national and regional disaster plans.
While FMCNA does its best to ensure
continued service in the event of disasters, it recommends that dialysis
patients and their loved ones prepare themselves during storm season by
following an emergency checklist developed by the company.
For more information on FMCNA’s disaster
response efforts and important tips to help patients prepare for any emergency,
visit FMCNA’s Disaster Response website.
About
Fresenius Medical Care North America
Through its leading network of more than
2,150 dialysis facilities in North America and vascular access centers,
laboratory, pharmacy and affiliated hospitals and nephrology practices,
Fresenius Medical Care provides renal services to hundreds of thousands of
people throughout the United States, Mexico and Canada. It is also the
continent’s top producer of dialysis equipment, dialyzers and related
disposable products and a major supplier of renal pharmaceuticals.