Date: 2005-05-18
Speaker: EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Chairman. I thank the ranking member as well as the chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security for coming forth with this legislation. The objective of my amendment is very simple. This amendment attempts to promulgate a national standardization of emergency medical response training to events involving weapons of mass destruction. I I The centerpiece of the National Medical Preparedness Consortium is its affiliation with the Center for Mass De-. struction Defense. a CDC Center for Public Health Preparedness. The Cgnter For Mass Destruction Defense is the original developer of the National Disaster Life Support courses. Basic Disaster Life Support and Advanced Disaster Life Support. which provides an allhazards approach to emergency medical services preparedness and are the only courses certified by the American Medical Association as national standards. The Center for Mass Destruction Defense was also one of the founding members of the National Disaster Life Support Education Committee of the AMA. which oversees the development and current implementation of the basic and advanced disaster life support courses. as well as a cofounder of the National Medical Preparedness Consortium. The funding for the National Medical Disaster Consortium would come from the Office of Domestic Preparedness which would not exceed $5 million. Since before the 9/11 attacks. great progress has been made in the level of training and preparedness for the first responders for terrorist attacks. including firefighters. police and other law enforcement personnel. These first responders have been telling their trainers we really appreciate the training and preparedness. especially for largescale attacks. but when are you going to start training the health care people? They are going to be real efficient about bringing these patients up to the emergency room. but what happens after they enter? It is one of those strange disconnects. When we had 9/11. nilost of the people were killed and all we thought about was firemen and policemen. But we do not expect that everyone will be killed if we have another disaster. They will need emergency care. and that is where this comes in. The physicians. nurses. hospitals. providers and other health care personnel have not been getting the widespread training in terrorist attacks that the firefighters. police and other first responders have gotten. There has been a variety of courses done here and there. but the vast majority of the health care personnel have not been trained and the ones that have received some training have received a real hodgepodge of courses of different course content. different quality. and even with strange disagreements between the courses. As a trained. educated. degreed nurse myself. I can tell Members firsthand that in certain critical fields of medi"cine the professional community has come up with a national standard of training in order to get everybody on the same page because it is often important that nurses and physicians go from one end of the country to another when needed. just as firemen and policemen dp. but they need to have a specific body of knowledge when they get there. The two main examples were trauma iar with. has a specialized hospital that care and cardiac care before we came is engaged in training health profesup with a national sthndard for trauma sionals for this specific purpose. We care. Like car wrecks. people were get- simply think that we should coordinate ting different approaches in some the grants and that the Department of places. and patients were dying from Health and Human Services is the appoor care. propriate agency to coordinate these 0 1430 grant programs. If the gentlewoman would be so kind The same was happening with cardiac. as to withdraw her amendment. I cant care. Then we came up with advanced assure her that I and the members of trauma life support. or ATLS. and ad- our Subcommittee on Health will be vanced cardiac life support. These na- glad to work with her to try to achieve tional standards revolutionized trauma the goals that she has in mind with and cardiac care around the Nation. I this amendment. have taken both the ATLS and the Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of ACLS myself and this is the way to go. Texas. I thank the gentleman very What we need now is a national much. and I will withdraw this amendstandard for disaster care so that the ment. medical community will be able to re- I would like to say. too. that the spond responsibly across the Nation. Bechtel. Nevada/National Nuclear SeWhat we need is a national standard curity Administration. the Dartmouth for advanced disaster life support. College Interactive Media Laboratory. Well. there is an advanced disaster life Eastern Kentucky University. Hazard support curriculum that has been de- Community College of Kentucky. New veloped by the CDC center known as Mexico Technical University. New the Center for Mass Destruction De- York City Office of Chief Medical Exfense. and this curriculum has been en- aminer. Summerlin Medical Center. dorsed by the American Medical Asso- University Medical Center. Las Vegas. ciation for a national standard for dis- Tulane University Medical Center. Uniaster medical care. versity of Findlay. Ohio. University of In addition to the AMA. a number of Georgia/Medical College of Georgia. specialty medical organizations have University of Louisville (Kentucky). also adopted the advanced disaster life University of Texas Southwest Medical support curriculum. such as the Amer- School. which is in my district. Upper ican College of Emergency Physicians. Iowa University. Vanderbilt UniverThe advanced disaster life support and sity. and Western Michigan University its sister courses. basic disaster life along with about 30 emergency physisupport and CDLS. have been presented cians that we have been collaborating in 35 States now which is a wider dis- with for the last 3 years. tribution for an allhazards disaster Mr. Chairman. I withdraw the medical curriculum than any other amendment. available. The Acting CHAIRMAN (Mr. I know that the opposition to this is BONNER). Without objection. the that it did not come through the Coin- amendment is withdrawn. mittee on Energy and Commerce and -There was no objection: there are -some who think it has al- The Acting CHAIRMAN. It is now in ready been done. What I am attempting order to consider amendment No. 6 to do here is to put something in a printed in part B of House Report 109standard for around the Nation so that 84. all of the people involved will have a AMENDMENT NO. 6 OFFERED BY MR. EHLERS standard body of knowledge. - Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Chairman. I offer