National Health Board responds to quake

The National Health Board's Emergency Management Team (EMT) was activated early on Saturday morning (4 September 2010), immediately following the Canterbury earthquake.

The team is assisting with the logistics of getting more that 100 clinical staff from other District Health Board's and Ministry of Health personnel from around the country, to Christchurch to help with the recovery process.

Ailsa Jacobson, Operations Manager for the National Health Co-ordination Centre (NHCC) says "collectively we've already achieved a lot in a short space of time by assisting Canterbury District Health Board in the recovery process since the earthquake first struck.  The recovery for health services in Canterbury is going to need management for a lot longer, and the region will continue to require support from the rest of the health sector."

The EMT has been tasked with the responsibility of providing a health liaison person to the National Crisis Management Centre, to provide a link between health and other responding government agencies.

A centralised website has been established to act as a single point of access to information about the response and links to agencies providing supporting to Canterbrians: http://canterburyearthquake.govt.nz

The earthquake site has a link to a page on the Ministry's site that can also be accessed from: http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/indexmh/christchurch-earthquake