Treatment tent set up at hospital

Firefighters from throughout this region were at Sarah Bush Lincoln Fayette County Hospital on Tuesday afternoon setting up a tent under the hospital’s emergency room canopy.

“The purpose of this is in the event we were to have an influx of patients who would require monitoring, testing (for coronavirus), that sort of thing,” hospital CEO Greg Starnes said.
“If we were inundated in the hospital, this gives us extra room (to deal with this issue),” he said.
“This is just strictly precautionary.
We’re just trying to be as prepared as we possibly can,” Starnes said.
The tent came from MABAS (Mobile Aid Box Alarm System) 54, an agency made up of fire departments from throughout this region. Members of some of those departments, including Vandalia, set up the tent.
“These are available on a first-come, first-served basis, so we wanted to speak for it and get it here,” said Starnes.
He said that he and those in leadership positions at the hospital made the decision to request the tent, “many of us who are working to really trying to stay on top of the Centers for Disease Controls mandates and guidelines that are coming out, because those are updated fairly often.”

Firefighters with MABAS (Mutual Aid Box Alarm System) 54, including Vandalia firefighrers, set up a treatment tent under the emergency room canopy at Fayette County Hospital in Vandalia.