Nursing teams for emergencies established

Shanghai’s first nursing teams to be used as a standby force for public health emergencies has been established. 

The 3,000-member team with nursing professionals from 12 hospitals can be gathered under urgent orders to deal with major health incidences, officials from Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine said on Saturday, ahead of International Nurses Day on Wednesday.

The team is also the first in the nation.

Among the 42,600 medical staff supporting Wuhan, the then epicenter of the coronavirus epidemic, 28,600 are nurses, covering nearly 70 percent of the total. Among them, 342 are graduates from Shanghai Jiao Tong.

Nurses work in the front line of epidemics and take on the task of improving treatments for seriously ill patients and reduce mortality, officials said.

The idea of establishing such a nursing team was developed last year, and was included into Shanghai’s three-year public health action plan.

Through cooperation between the school of medicine and the 12 affiliated hospitals, the nurses will receive training at their own hospitals, especially focusing on key technologies like infection prevention, operation of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, and artificial airway care to improve members’ ability in emergency service and clinical practice.

Training and drills on nursing services under extreme weather conditions, trials in the Yangtze River Delta region, physical crisis intervention, nuclear radiation and chemical poisoning will be conducted to improve the team’s ability to deal with public health incidents involving adults, children and mother and infant to protect health and safety.