(A media briefing and tour of the facility will be held at Lakehurst Naval Air Station at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, June 12.)

The New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services (NJDHSS) will stand up its recently purchased Mobile Care Facility, which can be used for shelter and/or medical care at sites statewide during a response to any public health emergency, the week of June 9 at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in Ocean County.

“During a mass casualty event or any emergency where hospitals may be overwhelmed, we now have the capability to deploy a mobile care facility to a specific site to assist in treating patients,” said Health and Senior Services Commissioner Heather Howard. “It can also be used as a stand-alone facility and be deployed to an area that does not have a medical facility nearby.”

The Department’s Mobile Care Facility contains more than 6100 square feet of enclosed space and can accommodate 49 medical cots and 46 isolated medical cots. They system has a self-contained heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system and is self-insulated. It can be mobilized quickly and is scalable depending on the size of the event. It can also be decontaminated easily following use.

The facility, including medical equipment, was funded with $950,000 through federal funding from the Department of Health and Human Services.

Medical equipment and supplies for the facility will be maintained as part of the New Jersey State Strategic Stockpile Program.

This project was the result of collaboration between the Department, the Citizen Corps including the Medical Reserve Corps (MRC), Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT), the Emergency Medical Services Task Force (EMSTF), the Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) and other local and state emergency response agencies.

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