National Nurses United

Cover Story hands were tied," said Moss. "They couldn't do any medical treat- ment. They had medications, but couldn't give them out except the over-the-counter stuff. They wanted to do medicine. They didn't want to just be a Band-Aid." Stories like this one were all too common in the months following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The obstacles, dis- array, inefficiency, and sheer lack of information medical professionals encountered when they tried to offer their services was disturbing, nurses report. Nobody knew who was in charge because, in fact, no one was in charge. Neither the federal government, nor state and local health agencies, stepped up to the task of assess- ing survivors' medical needs, the state and local healthcare infrastructure's capacity to meet them, and then filling in the huge gaps. "I know that healthcare professionals were just so frustrated," said Lorie Dolo, an RN who works for the disaster response profes- sionals office of Northwest Medical Teams, a humanitar- ian aid organization based in Portland that has provided medical disaster relief all over the world since 1979. "People were just stumbling through. There was no identified coordinating body. The government has to assign responsibility for decisions to be made. But that didn't happen, and during a disaster is not the time to talk about it." S ister RNs Lynda Moss and Becky Werner were vol- unteering in Gulfport, Miss. after Hurricane Kat- rina when the clinic where they were stationed heard that residents of a Red Cross shelter down the road desperately needed tetanus shots. It was- n't for lack of medical staff that residents weren't getting them; there were Red Cross doctors and nurses helping at the shelter. But under the mammoth relief organization's rules, the Red Cross health profession- als were only allowed to give refugees basic first aid, hand out over-the-counter medication, and make referrals. Moss and Werner's clinic couldn't be both- ered with such regulations and red tape. It sent the two women with a small team of volunteers down to the shelter to set up a vac- cination clinic. The Red Cross refused to let them administer the shots inside the shelter, so they set up their tent outside. The two nurses vaccinated people for several days until the Red Cross finally booted them off the premis- es. Soon after, two Red Cross RNs and even a doctor defected from the shelter to work at the Pass Road clin- ic because they were fed up with not being able to give the shelter residents meaningful care. "I went inside the first day and some of the nurses and physicians were pretty disgruntled because their Missing AND Inaction Both the Red Cross and government couldn't or wouldn't provide the medical care needed after Hurricane Katrina. JUST WHO IS IN CHARGE of handling our medical response to disasters? By Lucia Hwang C A L I F O R N I A N U R S E J A N U A R Y / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 6 9

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