With COVID-19 the pop up vaccination clinic because common place as a tool for the provision of health care outside the conventional clinic and hospital. Cdn Armed Forces Medical services routinely utilize the pop-up medical facility in its mission to provide medical care anywhere, at any time. This skill has been used to conduct vaccine clinics, provide emergency aid, provide care as part of humanitarian missions such as DART and even to provide surgery in a war zone like most recently in Iraq.
This panel will discuss the considerations to planning, building, and successfully executing the provision of health care in this type of facility. Topics include siting, security, supply and staffing. The two models discussed will be an immunization clinic and a single task (remote urgent care) medical facility
This discussion will be useful for those who may be called to assist in a domestic emergency or want to work with Non-governmental agencies in the third world providing humanitarian care.
Learning Objectives
At the conclusion of this session, the participant will be able to:
Identify the How and Why, What, Where, When and Who to develop some sort of facility that provides medical care, is temporary, and adaptable to need.
Explain how to plan and operate such a facility and case studies.
Anticipate restrictions/constraints and restraints.
Major Ashley Millham is in his 33rd year of service to Canada as a senior officer in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). He currently serves as Officer Commanding of Banting Company, and CAF Physician Assistant Program Director at the Canadian Forces Health Services Training Center (CFHSTC) in Borden, ON.
Graduating the CAF PA Program in 2010, Warrant Officer Millham was recruited to Canadian Special Operation Regiment as a Physician Assistant. There he was able to hone clinical skills and excelled in remote trauma medicine, tropical and travel medicine.
In 2015, Master Warrant Officer Millham was posted to 1 Canadian Field Hospital as Sergeant Major. In 2016, he deployed to Erbil, Iraq as the Hospital Sergeant Major for the initial deployment of the Role 2 Hospital. In this role, he assisted the initial planning for the deployment by utilising the “glass house” concept. To solve the problem of overfilling space with equipment, he had room outlines taped on the floor and placed the equipment needed, giving planners realistic estimates of equipment capacity in the facility Canada would inherit. The “glass house” model became the primary tool used for final training exercises for hospital staff deploying to Erbil.
After commissioning to rank of Captain, he was posted to London, Ontario as the clinic commander. With COVID-19 forcing multiple rapid military deployments, he planned medical screening and immunization clinics for several hundred Reserve Force soldiers deploying throughout ON and QC. In May 2021, Major Millham was deployed as Senior Medical Authority to Task Force Aurora, the CAF mission to support the COVID-19 immunization efforts in northern remote First Nations communities in Manitoba.
Major Millham has had operational deployments in Cyprus, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Central and South America, Sub-Sahara Africa and Iraq.