RN Response Network

Group of nurses in red scrub shirts holding RNRN banner

About RN Response Network

The RN Response Network (RNRN) is a national network of direct-care RNs — powered by National Nurses United — that coordinates sending volunteers to disaster stricken areas where and when they are needed most. Learn more »

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Join RNRN volunteers

If you are a Registered Nurse interested in volunteering for disaster stricken areas, please click below to join over 28,000 RNs who make up the RN Response Network.

Nurses on deployment prepare for patients

Donate to RNRN

Donate to get nurses where they are needed most! With RN Response Network, nurses can focus on providing patient care. RNRN takes care of everything else – including raising funds to cover airfare and lodging.

Three nurses wearing RNRN red scrubs standing together with arms around each other.

Deployment FAQs

Interested in volunteering but want to know more? Read our answers for some of the most frequently asked questions about RN Response Network volunteering and deployment.

Group of 4 RNRN volunteers hold hands looking down on destruction caused by forest fire.

Resource: Wildfire Smoke Is Dangerous To Your Health

Wildfire smoke contains many air pollutants that are known to contribute to cardiovascular and respiratory outcomes. Read our flyer for tips on how to keep you and your community safe from wildfire smoke.

Compassion Without Borders: RNs Report on the Public Health Crisis at the Border

In 2019, as reports of a dire situation at the border emerged, RNRN was moved to act and deployed 20 teams of volunteer registered nurses to provide basic medical care at border shelters from January 2019 to July 2019.

Report: Conditions in Puerto Rico And Call for Immediate Congressional Action

In 2017, a delegation of 50 volunteer registered nurses deployed to Puerto Rico for a two-week disaster relief effort in the wake of Hurricane Maria. These RNs witnessed communities and neighborhoods that remained devastated weeks after hurricane Maria made landfall.

Videos

RNRN: An Overview

RNRN's deployments have included responses to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, the devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010, Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria in 2017, and many more.

Compassion Without Borders

Registered nurses with RNRN provided critical medical aid for asylum seekers in Tucson, Arizona.

Since its formation, RNRN has sent teams of nurses to help following disasters in locations across the United States and around the world, including California, Florida, New York, Texas, Haiti, the Philippines, and the Bahamas. RNRN has also provided basic humanitarian aid and medical support to underserved communities within the United States as well as in Central and South America and the Caribbean.

Articles

A team of volunteer registered nurses returned on April 24 from Guatemala, where they provided free medical care in rural, severely underserved areas as part of Registered Nurse Response Network.
In the wake of the widespread devastation from Hurricane Ian, nurses from Registered Nurse Response Network answered the call to work in partnership with International Medical Corps to help the hurricane survivors in Port Charlotte and Englewood, Fla.
When the registered Nurse Response Network call went out or RN volunteers to vaccinate the underserved South Los Angeles community, nurses immediately answered the call. The need was urgent: The Los Angeles Times reported that only 5 percent of the community’s residents had been vaccinated.

Press releases

A team of volunteer registered nurses returned today from Guatemala, where they provided free medical care in rural, severely underserved areas as part of Registered Nurse Response Network (RNRN), a disaster-relief project of National Nurses United and the California Nurses Foundation.
Registered Nurse Response Network (RNRN), in partnership with International Medical Corps, deployed a team of nurse volunteers to Florida earlier this month to help provide medical assistance in the wake of Hurricane Ian. The RNRN team has returned from their two-week deployment.
Nurses Week is underway and the Registered Nurse Response Network is calling on registered nurse volunteers to assist with Covid-19 vaccinations at the Kedren Community Health Center in partnership with International Medical Corps.
Nurse volunteers from the Registered Nurse Response Network (RNRN) have been vaccinating the South Los Angeles community for the past six weeks at the Kedren Community Health Center, in partnership with International Medical Corps.

Blog

RNRN is monitoring the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, which is setting records with Hurricane Isaias being the earliest “I” named hurricane in history. In California, there have already been over 4500 fires, more than twice the average normally recorded at this point in the season.
RNRN volunteer nurses traveled to the devastated Gulf Coast to help provide care for the hundreds of thousands of people abandoned and without food, water, shelter, medical aid, nursing care, or even a basic evacuation plan.
Registered Nurse Response Network volunteers spent three days at Casa Alitas, a Catholic Community Services shelter in Tucson, Ariz., providing medical care to migrant families and asylum seekers recently released from federal detention.