Australia runs training exercise for infectious disease response

Departing the hospital sealed in a bio-containment bubble.

It followed an intense, large-scale response to what could have been a serious infectious disease.

It all began hours earlier with what seemed like a routine visit to Concord Hospital's emergency department, where the "patient" reported her symptoms.

"I've got a fever, my gums are bleeding a bit," she says.

But it's what the patient said after that that raised the alarm.

"Have you been travelling overseas?" asks the nurse.

"Yes," the patient responds. "I was over in Sierra Leone."

With an Ebola outbreak currently underway in parts of Africa, it's a destination that rings alarm bells.

"That's a bit of a trigger. It's enough to trigger a response for a high-consequence infectious disease," explains Sydney Local Health District Disaster Manager Caren Friend.

The woman is quickly taken into quarantine for testing.

Staff across the hospital swing into action, following strict infectious disease protocols.

Thankfully, this isn't a real emergency; it's a training exercise.

Inside the incident control room, key personnel coordinate the next steps.

"She's not fit for discharge from an isolation point of view but also from a medical point of view," says Concord Hospital Infectious Diseases Specialist Dr Timothy Gray during a mock crisis meeting.

The decision is taken to move the patient to the Westmead Hospital biocontainment unit using a vital piece of equipment.

"It's a contained negative pressure unit which allows the patient to be transported in a contained manner," explains NSW Ambulance Dr Rob Scott.

Several similar drills were carried out in Sydney hospitals last month.

These exercises are designed to test emergency response plans, with the hope that such a scenario will never come to pass.

But the goal is clear: to be fully prepared if it ever does.

The patient is connected to oxygen and heart rate monitors, then secured inside the capsule, a piece of equipment that, fortunately, has never been used in an actual emergency.

"Australia has not yet had any Ebola or Ebola-like illnesses imported to Australia, but cases have occurred in America and in Europe as well, so we must be prepared for the event that it occurs here," concludes Gray.