Information
October 2001
The National Emergency Services Stockpile System (NESS)
- Health Canada's Centre for Emergency Preparedness and Response maintains a $300 million national emergency stockpile system to provide emergency supplies quickly to provinces and territories when requested. A 24-hour response capability is maintained.
- The National Emergency Services Stockpile (NESS) is funded and held by Health Canada. The department manages the NESS by assessing and refurbishing stockpile units, and distributing medical and pharmaceutical supplies at the request of provinces.
- The system consists of a central depot in Ottawa, seven federal depots across Canada, and 1,600 pre-positioned supply centres under the combined management of the provinces and federal government.
- The NESS contains everything that you would expect to find in a hospital, from beds and blankets to a supply of pharmaceuticals and a range of antibiotics. It includes 165 "field hospitals", or mobile hospitals, with 200 beds in each. These are positioned throughout the country. The units can be deployed on short notice (within 24 hours) to be set up in existing buildings such as schools and community centres.
- Additional capacities include supplies to set up first aid and triage stations. Pre-positioned supply centres have a mix of supplies depending on their location and anticipated emergencies that might occur.
- While some of the field hospitals are stored across the country, most drugs are held for Health Canada by the pharmaceutical manufacturers in order to ensure that they are rotated thus ensuring we have up-to-date drugs when required.
- The Centre for Emergency Preparedness and Response provided beds, blankets, and boxes of personal care products to support the 47,000 stranded passengers, who had landed at a number of Canadians airports after being diverted from flights headed to the United States on September 11, 2001. Supplies were provided within 24 hours and many products taken from the central warehouse in Ottawa were transported by Department of National Defence aircraft.
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