Evacuation equipment can now be found at all kinds of organizations. From schools to hotels and from companies to healthcare centres. In 2018, the MMC in Veldhoven, the largest medical centre in the South-East Brabant region (The Netherlands) joined the club. The introduction of evacuation equipment often is a long process. Demos must take place for different departments, staff members need to test the equipment, and the right installation locations must be selected. At last, the MMC decided to imply the S-CAPEPLUS Evacuation mattress – Basic model in a Green Wall Cover at various places on their campus.
To discuss the course of the introduction and the training courses, we spoke to Roy Nefs. Roy is a crisis management officer and was closely involved in the insertion of these tools. In the section below, he shares his doubts, the progression, the experiences, the motives and his opinion about the evacuation aids.
“The evacuation sheets (under the bed mattresses) we used in the hospital needed to be replaced and we looked for substitutes. Indiscriminately we did not want to opt for the same product but looked around in the market for products that are currently available.
We invited three suppliers to present and demonstrate their means of evacuation. Beforehand, we thought that our choice would be an evacuation chair, but we also included the evacuation mattress to not exclude any options.
During the presentations, we asked our end users (experts from the departments) to take a look and give their opinion. They ultimately chose this evacuation mattress because of the simplicity and safety for the patients and the user.
At first, the nurses of our hospital felt slightly uncomfortable until they practiced briefly. After practice (and trying, by lying on the mattresses themselves), all users are greatly satisfied with it and indicate that they actually dare to use the evacuation mattress during an evacuation. Fortunately, we have not yet had to use the equipment in a real situation.
The evacuation mattress offers a worthy, safe way to take bed-bound persons with you during an evacuation. The mattress is therefore certainly recommended for hospitals and parties such as nursing homes, care homes and home care organizations!
After some hesitation before practise and certainly before sliding down the stairs on the mattresses themselves, the nurses experience the vertical evacuation in fact as “boring”, they hardly even feel the stairs treads. “Six Flags Amusement Parc is more exciting…”, they said.
Roy A.C. Nefs
Policy officer crisis management
Máxima MC