January 27, 2010

A National Nurses United member describes the flood of volunteers from the union who want to donate their skills to help in Haiti.

READING THE mainstream press, it's stunning how slowly the U.S. government is getting aid into Haiti--an island only one hour's flight from the coast of Florida. This is in stark contrast to the outpouring of support coming from everyday people, including union members willing to take off time from work to help a devastated country.

Within 24 hours of the earthquake in Haiti, my union, National Nurses United (NNU), put out a call for volunteers to go to help. The response was overwhelming. As of last week, 11,000 registered nurses (RNs) had signed up as volunteers for Haiti disaster relief through the RN Response Network (RNRN).

The RNRN was formed in 2005 the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, with volunteers going to the Gulf Coast to provide health care to the hundreds of thousands impacted by the hurricanes.

The union estimates this to be the largest outpouring of RN volunteers in U.S. history. Nurses from other countries are signing up through the NNU program as well.

"As reports of dire medical care shortages continue to pour in, we have thousands of registered nurses willing and ready to travel to Haiti," said NNU Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro. "We are doing everything in our power to get these nurses engaged as quickly as possible."

A family shares a single bunk at an overcrowded emergency clinic in Port-au-Prince

But as of last Tuesday, this outpouring of vital health care volunteers was being denied access into Haiti.

Liz Jacobs, a nurse and spokesperson for the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), a member organization of the NNU, told CNN that the union had hundreds of potential volunteers ready to go and hoped that some could go aboard the USNS Comfort, a naval hospital ship. But the CNA/NNOC was told that it couldn't send volunteers.

"While we appreciate all the offers of assistance, due to the compressed timeline, and the need to activate medical personnel with only two days' notice, the decision was made to begin the mission with military professionals who were most familiar with the USNS Comfort," an official from the Navy's Bureau of Medicine told CNN.

Jacobs said she was frustrated. "I'm a registered nurse," she said. "I'm ready to go. Frustration is definitely the word of the moment. I know we're not alone in that."

So literally thousands of volunteers are waiting to get to Haiti to donate their skills and time freely--but the U.S. government is blocking them, while it focuses on ensuring their military occupation.

THE NAVY'S attitude is a stark contrast to the outpouring of offers to help from nurses.

On January 14, two days after the earthquake, the RNRN coordinated a conference call for interested volunteers. Dennis Kosuth, an ER nurse at John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital (formerly Cook County Hospital), said there were 1,800 nurses on the call. As he said:

Around 4,500 registered nurses had already volunteered within two days of the earthquake to go to Haiti, and others were on the call because they were eager to join the effort as well. Among those who spoke on the call was a student nurse who was about to take a licensing exam, a licensed practical nurse who has been in disaster zones, and an emergency medical technician with trauma experience. A couple people who wanted to help were currently unemployed, and said that they were willing to stay there as long as they were needed.

That same afternoon, there was a press conference in front of Cook County Hospital, where Magarette Dupiton, a neuro-intensive care nurse and a Haitian American, spoke. "I have to go," she said. "If you watch CNN and see your people in that condition, and you know deep inside you can help...you have to go."

Despite the delays by the U.S. government, local fundraising continues to gather money to help with relief and to get medical personnel to the disaster zone. A fundraiser at Cook County is in the preliminary stages. People can also donate to send a nurse to Haiti by going to the National Nurses United Web site.

We need to build pressure on our government: Let nurses and doctors in, not more troops!