CDP set to train healthcare workers in Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico will be the site of two CDP classes and an associated health care mass casualty exercise May 29 - June 1.

The courses – Health Care Leadership for Mass Casualty Incidents and Hospital Emergency Response Training for Mass Casualty Incidents – will be conducted May 29-31 and culminate with the mass casualty exercise June 1 at Ramón Ruiz Arnau Hospital in Bayamon.

The CDP courses and exercise are being conducted at the request of Puerto Rico’s Department of Health and the Puerto Rico Emergency Management Agency (PREMA), and will help more than 100 healthcare leaders and responders from the U.S. territory enhance their communities’ emergency response plans and capabilities for times of disaster.

Puerto Rico continues to recover following hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017. As part of that process, FEMA and many Government of Puerto Rico partners, including the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the University of Puerto Rico, are combining forces to bolster Puerto Rico’s emergency response capability and capacity through a series of health care response emergency management exercises.

Team CDP personnel have been working and planning the CDP-led training and exercise for months, working with officials in Puerto Rico to register students, arrange training venues and support locations, translate all course documents into Spanish, and transport equipment and course materials to the island.

Following the CDP training, FEMA’s Emergency Management Institute will conduct additional training and another exercise over a four-day period in mid-June. EMI will conduct its Incident Emergency Management Course and a tabletop exercise from PREMA’s Emergency Operations Center via video teleconferencing to FEMA’s four regional offices in Puerto Rico.