RN Response Network On High Alert For Gustav

Main Category: Aid / Disasters
Article Date: 01 Sep 2008 - 3:00 PDT

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As America turns its attention to New Orleans on the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the Registered Nurse Response Network (RNRN), has put out a call nationwide for RN volunteers in the event that tropical storm Gustav overwhelms local healthcare services, RNRN announced.

"RNRN has been in communication with the community free clinics that arose from the aftermath of Katrina and we will be monitoring the situation all throughout the Labor Day weekend to see when and if the services of our RN volunteers are needed," said Bonnie Castillo RN, and director of the RNRN. "In the meantime we will be screening RNs as to their availability and expertise."

As the storm gathers strength, and Mississippi and Louisiana are placed on high alert, residents express grave concerns that their basic healthcare needs will be ignored, again.

"Katrina revealed some ugly truths about our nation's failure to care for its citizens in the wake of a natural disaster, and here we go again," said Kim Lange, a New Orleans native, nurse practitioner, and RNRN member. "And we are still not prepared today. We need a national healthcare system that has the capability of stepping in at the time of impact and providing the healthcare services needed."

In conjunction with today's anniversary, RNRN has also released a new video, Broken Levees Broken Lives, that examines the collapse of the city's healthcare system, which can viewed at http://www.GuaranteedHealthcare.org. The video explores the ongoing crisis through the first-person accounts of nurses, doctors, city officials and local residents who are still struggling under appalling healthcare conditions following Katrina. The new video offers ways to take action, including passage of HR 676 and contributing much- needed funds to the community health clinics featured in the piece.

About CNA/NNOC's 2005 Katrina Effort

CNA/NNOC sent more than 300 nurses to 25 hospitals, clinics, and mobile units in Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi in response to the 2005 hurricanes, including a group of 50 RNs who arrived at the Houston Astrodome in the first few weeks. The organization provided half of the RN staff at Earl K. Long Memorial Hospital in Baton Rouge, La., for the two months after Katrina when patient rolls doubled.

This effort eventually became the Registered Nurse Response Network (RNRN) and now has more than 4,000 members. RNRN is designed to provide support and coordination for volunteer nurses when disaster strikes, allowing RNs to focus on providing patient care. RNRN works with federal and state agencies to resolve issues of medical credentials and licenses for out-of-state nurse volunteers.

To find out more about the RN Response Network, visit http://www.RNresponsenetwork.org. RNRN is a project of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee.

Background on the Current State of New Orlean's Healthcare crisis

The tragedy of the collapse of the public health safety net in New Orleans, caused by the controversial closure of Charity Hospital and its network of community clinics, is underscored by the findings of a recent study that points to an increasingly sicker population in the city. The Kaiser Family Foundation survey released on Aug. 13 found that 84 percent of adults living in New Orleans face ongoing health challenges and there has been a substantial deterioration in residents' mental health status.

Moreover, a recent article in the American Journal of the Medical Sciences noted that Charity Hospital - which is featured prominently in the RNRN video - "was the center of the greater New Orleans safety-net system for the past 269 years [and] the dominant source of care for the indigent population, serving 63 percent of the uninsured." A recent structural assessment of Charity unveiled Wednesday estimated it could be rehabilitated in three years at a cost of $484 million. Building a new hospital would take five years and cost $620 million, the report says.

With these conditions as a backdrop - and with other public hospitals facing financial difficulties and closures around the country - many medical professionals, patients, and other community leaders inside and outside of New Orleans are calling for the passage of HR 676, a national "Medicare for All" system and its promise of guaranteed healthcare on the single-payer model that is succeeding in every other industrialized democracy.

Healthcare Professionals, Patients, Community Activist Featured in Broken Levees, Broken Lives Available for Comment:

In conjunction with the release of this video, RNRN is also making available a number of individuals featured in the video who can talk about the healthcare crisis in New Orleans, including -

- Alice Craft-Kearney, RN and Patricia Berryhill, RN: Two nurses who founded the Lower 9th Ward Health Clinic from Berryhill's personal home of over 30 years where she raised her children and prepared meals for the local football team. The home was flooded to the rooftop and completely rehabbed with help from community volunteers to from the now-pristine and desperately needed free health clinic.

- Cecile Tebo, NOLA Police Dept. Crisis Unit Administrator: Saw an increase in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and suicide following the storm, yet there were no psychiatric beds for two years with the closure of Charity Hospital - the second-largest public hospital in the nation. She reports that there's been little improvement.

- Kim Lange, Nurse Practitioner: A native of the Lower 9th Ward, Kim joined RNRN immediately following the storm and volunteered at the Lower 9th Ward Clinic.

- Dr. James Moises, MD: Emergency room physician (formerly at Charity Hospital, which remains closed three years post-Katrina)

California Nurses Association

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