Mock mass casualty exercise tests health-care workers at Victoria hospital

Staff at Victoria’s Royal Jubilee Hospital tested their crisis response Monday with a mock mass casualty drill.

Health-care workers at Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria are testing their crisis response with a mock mass casualty drill that brought out volunteer actors wearing gruesome makeup to mimic a variety of wounds.

“The teams are really excited about being able to have this opportunity to practise when it’s not an actual mass casualty – so that we can get our processes streamlined and ensure that our plans that we have in place are going to be effective when we have something that really happens,” says Melanie Cyr, the hospital’s emergency services clinical director.

Organizers say roughly 100 people took part in the hours-long exercise. Staff were pretending there was a propane explosion sending 40 casualties to hospital at once.

“No,” shouted one of the volunteer actors at the triage station. “Get me in there fast! There’s something happening in my stomach. I don’t know what it is,” she said.

The volunteers were each given medical symptoms for health-care teams to sort out and decide what wing of the staged hospital they should report to – testing a variety of systematic factors, such as tracking protocols and supply locations, for discussion after the fact.

“We have seen some large-scale disasters such as the Coquihalla bus crashes, things of that nature. These things do occur, so we have to be prepared,” says Health Emergency Management B.C.’s Ryan Kuhn.

In a real-life setting, the mock scene at RJH would trigger a ‘code orange’ event and staff would need to make room in the hospital with little time.

“We try to clear out all the patients who can go home from the outpatient setting as well as clear the patients who are in the inpatient units who are ready to be discharged, so we can prepare to care for the patients who need the acute care services,” says Cyr.

“It’s a very complex response that’s needed,” says Rebecca Jackson, RJH inpatient clinical manager. “We do require a lot of effort from the community and from our hospital staff in order to ensure we’re safely accommodating the influx of patients and also continuing to provide safe care.”

A similar exercise occurred at Victoria General Hospital in 2023. According to Island Health, there’s no pass or fail for the drill. It’s an opportunity to learn and review ahead of a real event, which could include earthquake, weather and isolation events.