National Nurses United

���It was a pretty surreal experience. I would spend my day tromping up and down stairs in the dark, through garbage, then go back at night to Manhattan to a warm hotel. One night, I went to Times Square to see the lights and people were Christmas shopping. And just five or 10 miles away are people with no heat, food, or electricity���the basic things we consider necessary for life. I couldn���t reconcile it.��� Times Square to see the lights and people were Christmas shopping. And just five or 10 miles away are people with no heat, food, or electricity���the basic things we consider necessary for life. I couldn���t reconcile it.��� Roemer said she met many people who had run out of vital medications, food, and water, and needed medical attention. As an OB nurse, she was particularly gratified to be able to assess and help one pregnant mother who went into preterm labor after the hurricane to get the kind of food she needed to avoid triggering contractions again. She had been so traumatized, first by the hurricane and then by her medical emergency, that she kept vomiting everything she ate. Roemer discussed the importance of staying hydrated, and what the woman thought she could stomach, and arranged to have a supply of canned fruit brought to her. ���At first, I was thinking, ���Would I be able to help?������ said Roemer. ���But I was surprised If you would like to by how much you could do. It���s support RNRN���s disaster all of these things we do as relief fund with a nurses, assessing medical donation, please visit need. This is what we do all RNResponseNetwork.org. the time in the hospital.��� Share it with friends to ensure In New York City, RNRN that RNs are among the first found that lack of coordinaresponders. To donate by tion by government and tramail, please make checks ditional disaster relief payable to CNF/RNRN and groups had left many resimail them to CNF/RNRN, dents without basic services 2000 Franklin St., and those doing on-theOakland CA 94612. ground work without DECEMBER 2012 resources. Roemer said that volunteers with the Occupy movement and other intensely local efforts organized through social media platforms like Facebook were the most effective because they were based in the affected communities and knew what people needed. But they lacked resources that sometimes only government organizations could provide, such as portable nebulizers for asthmatics. Federal Emergency Management Agency and health and human services officials told nurses, doctors, and health advocates that the federal government could not intervene until city and state governments formally requested assistance, which they had not done. ���It was a bureaucratic morass,��� said Roemer. ���We were two and a half weeks out from Sandy and it was pretty amazing to think that in the United States, these people still didn���t have what they needed,��� said Roemer. She pointed out that disasters have a way of highlighting the existing inequities in society, and that nurses have a duty and responsibility to not only help patients in a crisis, but to work to improve their everyday conditions. ���These communities were already barely functioning. It takes just one big storm to slam them back into a situation now no longer stable or livable.��� W W W. N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G N AT I O N A L N U R S E 11

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