RNs' Readiness…and Haiti's Need

A Summary of the RN Heroes Program
by: Donna Smith

(As part of our RN Heroes project—and with the goal of honoring the extraordinary nurses who are literally everywhere--Donna Smith, a community organizer with NNU, shared these thoughts about nurses and the Haiti earthquake.  As Donna points out…nurses and the care they provide is universally needed.)

How does the world react when disaster rolls unmercifully across the fabric of our day-to-day lives?  For governments and for relief agencies and for well-meaning people all over the globe, those reactions can be steeped in political and economic considerations as the flow of aid and of money for disaster relief is tamped up to meet the current global disaster call.

But for registered nurses of National Nurses United, the news of an immediate medical emergency caused by natural disaster is not met with any diplomatic delay or conflict about what is needed by those who are suffering.  Nurses are needed.  Nursing care is needed. In an instant, RNs know that their professional training and skill could begin helping the patients who need care before most of the world wraps its responses around the horrific details. 

Nurses do not seek out the situations in which heroes are identified and sometimes glorified; nurses offer themselves into the service of patient care whether that care is needed in the rubble of Haiti, the devastation of Sri Lanka after the tsunami or the flood-damaged Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans after Katrina.

The Haitian earthquake of January 12, 2010, was such an event for RNs.  The overwhelming RN response was clear. Thousands of nurses stepped forward within days to volunteer in Haiti to help provide direct patient care – clearly, the need for nurses on the ground providing patient care was critical and desperately apparent.  Thousands upon thousands of other RNs stepped forward to offer their money or other support to help get other nurses to Haiti.

Those RNs who could not offer to go to Haiti were clearly moved.   70-year-old Majorie, one of our RNs from San Francisco said she still works in the maternity ward at her hospital, and she saw the report on NNU’s efforts on the news. “I wish I could go,” she said, “but I cannot.  I am needed here.” Later Majorie donated money to help other nurses get to Haiti.  Many thousands of others did the same.

Relief agencies already on the ground already had networks in-country developed from which they might draw some emergency support.  But it was immediately clear that the magnitude of the physical disaster in terms of human suffering and loss of life would require not only instant and extensive assistance from a multiplicity of sources but also the herculean effort of massive medical response in the midst of physical destruction beyond the capabilities of most of the agencies needed in that response.

The logistical challenges were enormous.

But the offers to serve, the demands to reach out into the horrific scenes of injury and death, kept pouring in.  From coast-to-coast, NNU nurses wove themselves into disaster response here at home, in active deployment to Haiti and in keeping the pressure on to always keep the best interests of the patients in Haiti up front as the world’s news focus shifted slowly but predictably away from Haiti.  The nurses will not falter or turn away. 

We share a few of the experiences of RNs who represent some of those serving in this disaster response.

Visit www.RNheroes.org for stories.

NOTE: In the coming days and weeks, as our RNs continue to embrace their professional duties and their personal passion for Haitian patients, we will share with you some of the comments and experiences that bring the breathtaking array of our RNs’ response and their courage to all.  And for those RNs who have not yet served in forward positions in this disaster deployment, we offer that the medical needs in Haiti will be on-going and the RN response will as well. 

For those of us working here at home to help get RNs to the patients who need them so during disasters, we know that each time you help a patient you carry us all with you. 

In the weeks and months going forward, we know RNs will continue to offer the aid and comfort only nurses can bring when life’s most awful circumstances arise. 

For without a doubt and in this disaster response and the next, our Registered Nurses Response Network (RNRN) will be pressed into action so long as there are disasters in which RNs are called to patient care

Thank you!