Drills That Readied Boston for Bombings Face Funding Cuts
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John Blanding/The Boston Globe via Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Dr. Paul Biddinger was at a medical station near the Boston Marathon’s “Heartbreak Hill” on April 15 when his pager went off, notifying him of the bombs at the finish line, five miles away.
Biddinger, who directs emergency operations at Massachusetts General Hospital, was standing next to someone from Boston Emergency Medical Services and someone from the state health department as they got similar calls.
They’d drilled for this moment, using actors pretending to be patients, paint bullets and controlled explosions. Federal funding goes to Massachusetts hospitals to train medical personnel to respond to disasters such as the Boston Marathon bombing.
Fortunately, on April 15, within minutes, Biddinger and the other medical responders were headed to where they needed to be.
But with the final 2013 budget still not settled, the programs that enabled doctors and EMTs to save lives last Monday may face federal cuts.
Of the 264 patients injured in the twin blasts on Boylston Street at 2:50 p.m., there have been no deaths after the initial three. Although Boston area hospitals initially listed 38 patients in critical condition and 14 patients underwent amputations for their injuries, no one else died. Now, only one patient remains in critical condition.
Hospitals throughout Massachusetts have received funding from the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response’s Hospital Preparedness Program to perform emergency drills that include fake patients. (They also need to have a shadow staff that continues to treat real patients during the exercise.)
And since May 2010, the city has done two 24-hour disaster simulations as part of its annual Urban Shield exercises, which are funded by the Department of Homeland Security. The exercises involved police, EMS teams, SWAT teams and hospitals. In 2011, they prepared to encounter bombs and active shooters as part of an exercise intended to mimic the 2008 Mumbai massacre.
But the drills could be in jeopardy. The Hospital Preparedness Program already faces a proposed $125 million cut from the 2014 federal budget, after receiving $379 million in 2012. It’s not yet clear what the final 2013 budget will be because of the sequestration.
The program began in 2002 with the Bioterrorism Act, but program director Dr. David Marcozzi said it shifted in 2012 toward building coalitions between hospitals that normally competed for patients and funding.
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