Community Health Center, Inc., the state’s largest operator of community health centers, tested the ability of its staff to care for non-English speaking patients during the TOPOFF disaster preparedness drill, a large-scale mock terrorism attack being coordinated by U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The event, which took place on April 4-8, featured a simulated chemical attack triggered by a bomb hidden in a vehicle in Fort Trumbull State Park, while similar mock attacks occured in New Jersey, Canada and the United Kingdom.

Community Health Center – headquartered in Middletown, Conn. – is took part in the exercise because it is a major provider of primary health care in the New London and Groton area, particularly to the region’s non-English speaking population. In fact, one out of every five local residents is a patient of the health center.

The focus of CHC’s exercise was on the care of non-English speakers during a crisis. CHC hired 15 actors to play the role of English and non-English speaking patients who visit the company’s New London health center during the mock terrorist attack.

There was two English speaking and two non-English speaking actors calling in for advice. The exercise tested the staff’s ability to care for these patients.
Spanish, French and Chinese were among the languages actually spoken by the actors during the exercise.

Mark Masselli, CHC’s president and CEO, said one of the reasons for participating is that he wants to make sure that the government’s emergency preparedness plan takes into consideration the large number of people in many urban areas who do not speak English as a first language. About half of the staff at CHC’s New London location is bi-lingual.

“Patients who spoke 80 different languages used our services last year,” said Masselli. “And either through our staff or our language line service, we spoke to those patients in their native tongue. That’s why we want to ensure that in any public health crisis, we are prepared to help and that we are included in the broader community response.”