State purchases three mobile hospitals - California

Fascinating technology on how one of these portable hospitals can be rolled out and set up in a hurry...picture below shows an ICU bed...and the units even have air conditional throughout...BD

During the 1994 Northridge quake, some injured Angelenos drove to local hospitals only to find them severely damaged, and had to drive elsewhere for help. But now there's a new tool that California and local officials will have in the next disaster: three full-service mobile hospitals that each have 200 beds and can be rapidly deployed wherever needed in the state. Los Angeles County has also purchased a 100-bed mobile hospital, which is expected to be delivered this week. The public got its first peek Saturday at one of the facilities that was sprawled on a grassy area the size of a football field at the California National Guard's Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos.

The portable facility consists of 30 blue-and-orange vinyl tents, draped over arched aluminum frames. The tents can be attached, like an adult-sized hamster tube. Inside was everything you'd find in a community hospital: fully equipped emergency and operating rooms, a trauma unit, a pharmacy, oxygen generators and even a tent where doctors can take X-rays and see them on a computer screen.

The move to purchase mobile hospitals came as part of efforts last year by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to improve the state's response to disaster and to prepare for the possibility of a pandemic flu, which in California could cause one-third of the population to fall ill and, in the worst case, result in 35,000 deaths statewide.