Written by Abigail Trewin AM, Director of Education
When we began developing our Emergency Medical Team (EMT) capabilities, AUSMAT sought insights from experienced teams worldwide. We aimed to understand the essentials of deploying field hospitals, including equipment choices and inventory management, and adapt these to our context. However, our outreach often met with polite declines for assistance. Faced with this challenge, AUSMAT relied on its ingenuity and the expertise of our logistics and experienced team members to build our field hospital capabilities from the ground up.
This collaborative effort gradually forged a robust field hospital capability, a milestone evident with our successful deployment to Tacloban, Philippines for Typhoon Haiyan in 2013. This achievement was a testament to our hard work and dedication, significantly contributing to the World Health Organization’s EMT Initiative and earning us a well-deserved classification.
Over the years, we've taken on the role of mentors to other teams worldwide, aiming to help them meet EMT standards. This mentoring process involved tailoring our guidance to each team's unique journey, acknowledging their distinct challenges and progress.
In addition, we know there is a consistent demand within the AUSMAT community for detailed insights into the workings of field hospitals. Despite our best efforts to disseminate this knowledge through training courses and workshops, there remained a gap in accessible information.
Recognising this, we have created the Toolbox Hub - an online resource hub for AUSMAT members and the broader EMT community. This platform is designed to be a comprehensive source of documents and resources developed by the National Critical Care Trauma and Response Centre (NCCTRC) from verification, experiences, operational plans, procedures, and deployment insights, aligning with EMT standards.
Our aspiration is that as time progresses, more teams will collaborate with us by sharing their insights and experiences. We have deliberately created room to facilitate the contribution of classified EMTs fostering an environment where the exchange of this vital information enhances the collective expertise of the global EMT community.
The Toolbox Hub is live now! It's a dynamic space that promotes learning, sharing, and collaboration, enhancing the collective knowledge of AUSMAT members and serving as a resource platform for global collaboration with the EMT community. We are excited to offer this resource and look forward to fostering engagement and collaboration globally. Explore the Toolbox Hub here.
Abigail Trewin AM
Director of Education
Abigail Trewin's career spans various domains within Paramedicine, disaster management and emergency response. As a registered Intensive Care Paramedic for 15 years. She has since assumed key roles in Government Health Departments for over a decade. Her responsibilities encompass interpreting and operationalising global health standards for the Australian government's disaster response capabilities. She has led collaboration with Ministries of Health in multiple countries, including Indonesia, Fiji, Thailand, and South Korea, to apply WHO global emergency health standards. She is a WHO mentor, trainer and EMT verification member Working for the WHO in Geneva 2018 as the senior technical officer of the Emergency Medical Team program. Abigail was instrumental in developing the Australian training program for a multidisciplinary healthcare workforce responding to Disasters . In her operational roles, Abigail has responded to numerous large-scale Australian Government disaster healthcare responses, Pakistan floods in 2010, Philippines Typhoon Haiyan, AUSMAT Mission Lead for multidisciplinary healthcare teams in Fiji Cyclone Winston, Samoa Measles outbreak, Aged Care Crisis and Artania vessel crisis. Her experience included managing infectious disease responses and establishing and running Australia's first Quarantine facility, The Centre for National Resilience in 2020 through to June 2021, supporting 6000 returning Australians. She was also an Executive Director and State Health Command for the quarantine program run by the Victorian Government, overseeing and effectively managing the care and well-being of over 10,000 quarantined individuals distributed across 15 sites and a workforce of 3,000 dedicated staff.
