PORTSMOUTH — The town will exercise its medical distribution setup in the event of a town-wide emergency from 9 a.m. to noon on Thursday, April 19, at Portsmouth High School. 

Citizens who are interested in observing the exercise are invited to visit from 11 a.m. to noon at PHS, which won’t be open for classes due to spring break.

With support of the R.I. Department of Health and the National Centers for Disease Control, the town has a medical emergency distribution system (MEDS) that can quickly establish a point of dispensing (POD) to distribute preventative medications to affected residents in the unlikely event of a medical pandemic or other attack (such as anthrax contamination). 

Since the town would likely have less than 12 hours to set-up a dispensing facility, it has special procedures and pre-positioned equipment for such an eventuality. Although the town has designated staff members to help set up and staff the POD, the volume of medications requires local volunteers to help distribute them in an orderly and expeditious manner. 

“We currently have a core group of town staff personnel and citizen volunteers on our list of people who are ready to help in such and emergency, but it will take many more to operate the POD to complete the entire distribution process in about 48 to 72 hours,” said Rich Talipsky, the town’s MEDS coordinator.

No specific medical training is needed as volunteers would be trained on the specific details of the medical emergency, and their assigned tasks, just before public distribution begins.

During the exercise at PHS, only the static physical setup, rather than the entire medication distribution process, will be tested, so a large number of citizen volunteers is not needed. 

More volunteers are needed for actual emergencies, however. One bonus for signing up: Volunteers and family members have priority “head-of-the-line” privileges to receive the medications to be distributed. 

If you’d like to be on the town’s list of MEDS volunteers, contact Mr. Talipsky at 401/643-0382 or rtalipsky@portsmouthri.com.