Ham radio at Mars Hill facility
improves emergency preparedness
MARS HILL — TAMC is one step closer to being prepared in any and all emergency situations with its recent installment of a new ham radio at the Aroostook Health Center (AHC) in Mars Hill.
Photo courtesy of TAMC
STEVE SANDELIER, left, of the Aroostook Amateur Radio Association, shows TAMC Aroostook Health Center team members Ken Kimball, maintenance technician, and Kelly Lundeen, administrator, how to operate the newly installed ham radio at the long-term care and rehabilitation facility located in Mars Hill.
“Ever since 9/11 and Katrina, there’s been a national push for better emergency preparedness,” said TAMC’s Director of Support Services Eugene Curtis, who explained that emergency response in those events revealed severe weaknesses. “Some nursing homes even abandoned their patients.”
With government insistence since those national disasters, much improvement in emergency preparedness has taken place across the country. TAMC, though, has always been on the forefront of emergency preparedness, holding many emergency drills each year, with at least one of those being a coordinated drill involving the community, and always looking for ways to improve their plan.
“TAMC has been very much involved in emergency preparedness. We do a lot here to prepare for emergencies,” said Curtis. “One of the key issues in any emergency situation is communication. We have an emergency communication plan.”
Part of that communication plan is utilizing telephone landlines and cellular phones, but, as seen during Hurricane Sandy last year, those methods are sometimes unreliable. Storms can knock out landlines and electricity, and even if a cell tower is still operational, it can become overloaded with callers trying to reach loved ones in an emergency. That’s why TAMC has a backup — ham radio.
Ham radio, otherwise known as amateur radio, has already been a part of TAMC for some time, since the Maine CDC gave one to every hospital in the state. The existing ham radio was set up at the A.R. Gould Memorial Hospital in Presque Isle. Members of the Aroostook Amateur Radio Association, a group that has upwards of 50 members, volunteer their time to come in and perform radio tests on the unit every three months or so.
“Steve Sandelier is often the guy that comes in,” said Curtis. “They’re a very civic-minded group of people.”
With assistance from the Northeastern Maine Regional Resource Center, which has a goal of helping health care facilities statewide be better prepared in the event of disasters, TAMC purchased an additional ham radio for AHC, a residential care facility.
“At any given time, they have upwards of 70 residents,” said Curtis. “We just installed it. So now, if there was an emergency, we can communicate with them back and forth.
“I’m proud of this accomplishment,” he said. “It gives us a level of preparedness. This is just a backup to help us out in case of an emergency.”
In the event of a disaster, the local ham radio club members hold licenses that allow them to operate the radios to facilitate emergency communication. Curtis said that at least two TAMC staff members are also licensed to operate ham radios.
The ham radio club performed an initial test on the unit, which they installed in August, and a follow-up test is forthcoming. Both radio units are hooked to backup generators so they can be used at a moment’s notice if a disaster should strike.
