You don’t expect it, but behind the scenes at Paaspop is a complete hospital. Thirty healthcare workers are ready to put stitches in a serious situation, for example. “We can handle the normal care of Paaspop here. Everything to not tax the regular care,” says the owner of the mobile hospital.
Behind the mainstage is a bright yellow container. Inside it smells of hospital and this is how it looks. There are stretchers and monitors ready to visualize the health of patients.
Serious situations
Ronald van Litsenburg from Event Medical Service shows ‘his hospital’ on Saturday. Visitors who have a breakdown day arrive at a first aid post where plasters can be stuck. In addition, the mobile hospital is for more serious cases. “We have four stretchers here with monitors to make a heart film and to measure blood pressure.”
Stitches can be put in the festival hospital, but doctors can also give someone a shock or oxygen. “Medication and infusions are ready. In very serious situations we can offer the best care here,” says Ronald.
“After a report, we can be present within three to four minutes with an AED.” Because the festival site and the outlying area are not easily accessible for a normal ambulance, a quad drives around as an ambulance. “We can transport a patient on a stretcher and there is everything here that an ambulance also has with him.”
STATEMENTS PACK AND ABUTTION TO CAMPERATION
Such a mobile hospital is needed, because Schijndel from 22,000 visitors goes to more than 50,000 visitors in a weekend. “Of course we sometimes have to send someone to the hospital for a photo, but we do here as much as possible so that we do not burden the local general practitioners, ambulances and hospitals in Den Bosch and Uden.”
Ronald does that with a team of around thirty people. “We have first care providers, nurses, specialists, ambulance personnel and doctors. There is almost a complete hospital here. Not special for us, we have been doing it for 25 years, but it is always special for visitors when they see this.”
Students were set at two festival visitors on Friday. “Someone had fallen and someone else had gotten hooked behind. It is not so bad so far.” And on Saturday afternoon the service started with an emergency situation at the campsite. The quad, which serves as an ambulance, drove away with high speed.
The most common injuries at a festival? “A cut in the finger, people who go through their ankles and headaches,” says Ronald.