March 28, 2020

_1JF5054-Unloading — Soldiers from the 103rd Brigade Engineer Battalion unload hospital equipment to the gymnasium at The Glen Mills School to set up a military field hospital.

A military-style field hospital is just days away from being operational in Delaware County. That was the word from the county’s Director of Emergency Services Tim Boyce. Saturday afternoon, personnel from the 103rd Brigade Engineer Battalion began offloading beds and other equipment to turn the gymnasium at The Glen Mills School in Thornbury Township into a hospital for low acuity patients not suffering from COVID-19.

Tim Boyce, director of Delaware County Emergency Services Department.

A floor chart showing how to set up the field hospital.

“This will be a military field hospital, what you would see put up with tents, just with a hard roof and with everything you would find in a normal hospital.”

The gym floor will sectioned-off into five wards, similar to how floors are set up in regular hospitals, with each ward used for a different type of patient. The idea, he explained, is to take the load off of hospitals where COVID patients are being treated.

“We are expecting a surge within the next 10-14 days. We need our critical care facilities to be able to take care of those people,” Boyce said Saturday, adding that everything should be ready at the school within 36 to 48 hours.

Once up, then the state-level healthcare system will begin resourcing medical personnel to staff the facility.

As for the building and grounds of the school, Boyce said the site was almost ideal. There’s no need for auxiliary power, and helicopters could bring patients in from more distant hospitals if need be.

He stressed that the facility is for low acuity patients, those needing hospitalization or temporary relocation, who are COVID free. One example of the temporary relocation would be in the case of a nursing home flood or fire where patients need to be housed but can’t, or shouldn’t, go to a hospital or another nursing care facility. The Glen Mills facility, he said, is not a quarantine center.

Preparations are coming from across the state.

He said the hospital would remain operating until it’s no longer needed, and it can expand if necessary. “Our job right now is to worry about the worst things happening. If the hospitals need to keep going for a longer-term, we can bring in screening and diagnostic [capabilities]. It’s a relief valve, that’s what we hope it is. … This operation will continue until the mission is met, until whenever we say OK.”

Boyce added that local hospitals are doing fine so far, “They’re not under a surge demand. They’re actually OK because people are not going [to them].”

About Rich Schwartzman

Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.

Federal medical facility planned for Delaware County

Along the Ford

In the wake of more COVID-19-related deaths, Delaware County Council Chairman Brian Zidek announced the establishment of a federal medical station at the former Glen Mills School.

The facility “will help us care for low acuity cases should the need arise,” Zidek said and would serve the entire region. The region includes surrounding Pennsylvania counties and parts of southern New Jersey.

A low acuity case, he explained, is someone who would be in the hospital, perhaps recovering from a minor surgery, but the hospital is full of COVID patients.

“The National Guard will be setting this up [Saturday] and the days to come … I hope we don’t have to use this. It’s my hope that hospitals are able to manage the COVID-19 crisis without the use of this federal medical station but, out of an abundance of caution, we want to make sure we have facilities in place should the need arise,” Zidek said.

Tim Boyce, director of the Delaware County Department of Emergency Services, said the plans to use the school were discussed with representatives from FEMA for more than a week, and that the final inspection of the facilities — conducted by the Army Corp of Engineers, FEMA, PEMA, the Department of Health and “military partners” — was Friday.

He went on to say the facility will be staffed by medical professionals from different hospitals and healthcare institutions. The Hospital Association of Pennsylvania is working out the staffing but, Boyce said, “That staffing will not deplete normal facilities.”

The Glen Mills School — a youth detention center for juvenile delinquents located in Thornbury Township — closed in March of 2019 following allegations of abuse and cover-ups.

Boyce said the school facilities are “exactly what the planning team needs” and no additional buildout is needed. He also repeated that the facility is for overflow patients only, “not a place where you would race here in an ambulance.”

However, there will be a full range of facilities for pediatrics, bariatric patients, “all dealing with those low acuity patients,” he said. But, “As time goes on, it is adaptable to fit other needs, if it were needed.”

Boyce, and then Zidek repeated that the station is for non-COVID patients who need care, but the hospitals they were in were overloaded with COVID cases.

“We are not bringing COVID patients into the community,” Zidek said. “This facility is here to help hospitals that would otherwise be overflowing.”

He said the facility could handle 250-300 patients.

As of a press release issued on Friday, March 27, Delaware County has recorded 190 cases of COVID-19 with four fatalities.