Tri-State Area Nurses Respond to Gulf Coast Disaster
by Susan Johnson
N urses from around the Greater Philadelphia/Tri-State region are reaching out to local American Red Cross chapters to find out what they can do to ease the suffering caused by Hurricane Katrina. Several area nurses already have been deployed to disaster scenes in the affected Gulf Coast states.
“We’ve had numerous doctors and nurses calling and asking how they can help,” says Cordelia Miller, director of emergency services at the American Red Cross of the Greater Lehigh Valley, based in Bethlehem, Pa. At press time, officials at the Lehigh Valley chapter could not say exactly how many nurses had been deployed from its chapter.
“This is probably the worst disaster we have ever faced,” says Miller, who has 30 years’ experience with the American Red Cross and has been on the scene of many disasters during that time. “They [volunteers] are just overwhelmed, and all they can do right now is just save lives.”
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is also coordinating disaster relief efforts. Nursing Spectrum Ambassador Kathleen Yhlen reports that her colleague Karen Slutsky, RN, was dispatched by FEMA to Biloxi, Miss., on Sept. 3. Slutsky, clinical nurse manager of the Emergency Department at Cooper University Hospital in Camden, N.J., will spend two weeks providing medical care to members of the community.
Red Cross disaster training
The Red Cross will deploy only volunteers who have gone through its disaster training program. The organization’s strict screening process is designed to protect volunteers, so they are not put into situations they are unprepared for. Training sessions offered by local chapters to answer the demand for health care personnel are filled with nurses and doctors who want to donate their expertise in the hard-hit Gulf Coast region.
Those who want to be deployed by the Red Cross must be RNs or physicians and are required to commit to a two-week assignment, says Heather Kennell, specialty volunteer coordinator for the Southeastern Pennsylvania chapter of the American Red Cross. The chapter is offering fast-track disaster training that defines the role of Red Cross health services workers.
“We offer emotional support, wound care, give aspirin, splint wounds,” Kennell says. “We don’t do suturing on the battlefields; that’s not what we provide.”
Even if nurses can’t commit to two weeks at this time, Kennell encourages them to sign up as volunteers. “The Red Cross is always in desperate need of nurses,” she says. “We would love to have them on our roster, get them trained, so ... they’re ready and able to help out [in the future].”
Volunteers needed locally, too
Some volunteer opportunities are available locally. The City of Philadelphia is mounting a relief effort, “Project Brotherly Love,” to provide housing for 1,000 families left homeless by Hurricane Katrina. Philadelphia has a nationally recognized model in place for treating and preventing homelessness, which will be deployed to screen and assess the needs of the evacuees. Mayor John Street is working with federal and state emergency management officials to determine how Philadelphia can help most. Many volunteers will be needed to execute this effort. To sign up, visit www.phila.gov/Katrina.
Kennell says her chapter sent a team of nurses to Philadelphia International Airport to meet a plane carrying 600 evacuees from New Orleans. “They’ll go onto the plane and triage to assess what medical needs [they] have,” she says.
Nurses on the scene
In addition, the chapter has deployed 10 nurses to the Gulf Region. Another 45 nurses are signed up for the chapter’s fast-track training, and Kennell hopes at least 20 of those nurses will be dispatched when their training is complete. Most will be sent to Montgomery, Ala., where the Red Cross has set up its Hurricane Katrina relief headquarters. From there, volunteers will be sent to areas where their skills are most needed.
“I’m standing in the middle of a gigantic, empty Kmart building filled to the brim with goodhearted workers,” says Linda Lucas, RN, MSN, CNS, who spoke to Nursing Spectrum via cell phone from the staging area for Red Cross volunteers in Montgomery, Ala.
Lucas arrived Sept. 6 after signing up with the American Red Cross of the Delmarva Peninsula. Three other nurses — Karen Clark, RN; Marguerite McKelvey, RN; and Valerie Plaska, RN — also were deployed from the Wilmington, Del.-based Red Cross chapter. “Everything is up and running” at the headquarters building, Lucas says, including computer and phone lines, electricity, and running water.
“I am very grateful that I’m a nurse right now, because I have the skills to help,” says Lucas, a claims review nurse with Schellar Anderson in Newark, Del. “Anyone can help by holding someone’s hand. But a nurse can bandage them while they hold hands.”
While Lucas filled out paperwork and waited for her assignment, she greeted other volunteers with words of encouragement. “It is filled with hope and amazing smiles,” she says. “Everyone here is doing their job and smiling.”
As Lucas walks through what she calls the “organized chaos,” she describes the bustle of activity. A map littered with Post-It notes labels areas where residents have been reported missing. Lucas stops to thank the workers in charge of finding lodging for the Red Cross volunteers, even though she doesn’t yet know where she will be sleeping.
A few more steps and Lucas finds Carolyn Williams, RN, a Red Cross staff health manager from Portland, Ore., who arrived in Montgomery on Aug. 28. “Hugs to you!” Lucas exclaims, embracing her fellow nurse. Williams then explained to Lucas that she would soon be interviewed to determine her assignment.
“I will do whatever they want me to do,” Lucas says. “I might be going out into the field. Whatever it is, it is.”
Screening volunteers
Although the Red Cross is in need of nurses like Lucas, not everyone who applies to volunteer will be deployed to the devastated Gulf Coast region.
“One thing that Red Cross is very concerned about is not putting Red Cross volunteers in harm’s way,” says Johanna “Hanna” Tracy, MSN, APRN, BC, a disaster health services manager and disaster health services instructor for the American Red Cross of Central New Jersey, based in Princeton, N.J. The American Red Cross honored Tracy in May with the Ann Magnussen award for her contributions to strengthening and improving Red Cross programs and services.
Tracy, who is also a nursing instructor at Capital Health System School of Nursing in Trenton, N.J., helps with mental and physical screening of potential Red Cross volunteers. If applicants have any health restrictions — such as inability to tolerate extreme heat, emotional stress, mold and mildew, or food limitations — they will not be deployed to the disaster areas in the south at this time, Tracy says.
“We also do a mental health screening. We want to make sure that people are mentally stable and that they don’t have a lot of crises or recent losses in their lives,” she says. “For example, if your son died in Iraq two months ago, this is not a place you need to be.”
The conditions in the hurricane-ravaged region are extremely difficult, she says, and those who are deployed are told to bring supplies, such as a few days’ worth of food and water, sleeping bag, towel and washcloth, boots, and a flashlight. Eye masks and ear plugs are necessary because volunteers might find themselves sleeping in a room with 200 to 300 other people between their 12-hour shifts.
“We’re not expecting any respite from these conditions during their deployment,” she says. “There will be no air-conditioned places to go to get out of the heat, and food is likely to be limited to Meals Ready to Eat (MRE’s).”
Tracy, whose experience as a Red Cross volunteer has taken her on the scene of about 15 natural disasters, helps prepare nurse volunteers for what they will encounter. “The one thing that people need to appreciate is that seeing it on TV is not like experiencing it,” she says. “Whether it’s the sounds, the heat, the odor, the fatigue ... We’re trying hard to help them understand what they’re getting into.”
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How to volunteer |
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Contact information for the American Red Cross chapters mentioned in this article:
Greater Lehigh Valley chapter
(610) 865-4400
LVARC@usa.redcross.org
Southeastern Pennsylvania chapter
(215) 299-4000
kennellh@redcross-philly.org
Delmarva Peninsula chapter
(800) 777-6620
emergency@redcrossdelmarva.org
Central New Jersey chapter
(609) 951-8550
info@njredcross.org
Other ways to help
To make a donation to the American Red Cross visit https://give.redcross.org or call 1-800-HELP-NOW (1-800-435-7669).
Find a local Red Cross chapter by visiting www.redcross.org/where/chapts.asp and clicking on your state.
The City of Philadelphia’s Project Brotherly Love has an online sign-up form. For more information about the relief effort or to sign up, visit www.phila.gov/Katrina |
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