by Jenni Horn

jhorn@thekmgroup.co.uk

Staff at Medway Maritime Hospital have been praised for the way in which they dealt with a major incident when a roof collapsed at a Sheppey college.

Twelve pupils, who were injured when a 100ft section of heating duct caved in at Minister College, were treated at the hospital in Gillingham on Tuesday. Eleven patients arrived by ambulance, while a further patient was brought by car. Seven were treated in the A&E department, and the remaining five were dealt with in the paediatric unit.

The casualties were treated for fractures, bruising, lacerations and shock.

Ambulances were diverted to other hospitals while staff dealt with the incident.

Cheryl Lee, head of human resources, said: "When a major incident occurs in any hospital, the first thing that happens is that other blue lights are diverted to other trusts in the local area, so we can focus on the major incident we are dealing with."

"We were diverting blue lights from 10am when the major incident was called and we were stood down at 1,30pm, so began accepting ambulances again from 1.45pm."

Miss Lee says the hospital has plans in place to call on extra staff if a major incident occurs, but in this case, it was not necessary.

She said: "If there had been a larger number of pupils hurt we would have had to look at cancelling elective surgery on that day or cancelling clinics in the afternoon.

"Initially we thought there would be a larger number of pupils arriving and we didn’t know what the severity of their injuries would be.

"It was a case of waiting and assessing as the incident moved forward but because the number of casualties was fairly small, we were able to cope with the work-force numbers we had. We did have to reschedule some out-patient appointments.

"We followed our major incident policy to the letter and things ran like clockwork. The staff worked extremely well together and dealt with things calmly.

"The chief executive Andy Horne is really pleased with the way we were able to respond and the professionalism of the staff, both in A&E and the paediatric unit. They all did a very good job."

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