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Nurses Issue Urgent Call for Help in Haiti
National Nurses United (NNU) issued an urgent call last night through its nationwide disaster relief network to recruit nurse volunteers to assist residents of earthquake-devastated Haiti. Thousands are feared dead after the impoverished island nation was rocked by a 7.0 earthquake and severe aftershocks yesterday.
Details are still being worked out, but nurses can sign up at the NNU website, www.nationalnursesunited.org. NNU also will provide follow-up information at www.twitter.com/nationalnurses for details and plans.
Said NNU Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro:
We are calling on nurses throughout the U.S. to join us in this critical effort. Nurses will be fundamental to the disaster relief process, to provide immediate healing and therapeutic support to the patients and families facing the devastation from this tragic earthquake.
The Registered Nurse Response Network hopes to send nurses to provide emergency short-term and long-term medical support, as it has in previous major disasters. Following Hurricane Katrina, for example, hundreds of nurse volunteers worked with local health care and emergency agencies and officials in mobile clinics, area hospitals and other health care settings in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.
The 150,000-member NNU was formed last month through the merger of California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, United American Nurses and Massachusetts Nurses Association.
This is the first of what will be many union responses to the earthquake. We will continue updates as information comes in.
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by dougsmiley: Reading: AFL-CIO NOW BLOG | Nurses Issue Urgent Call for Help in Haiti: http://bit.ly/6OpDSC via @addthis…
Wish I were younger and able to move about with ease, I’d go. Was with the NM disaster medical team for years and helped after Hurricane Andrew and the Northridge earthquake. I’m sure there are lots of young nurses and medical persons that will answer this call. Be safe. Remember that you should not be the next victim.
I second that notion (Retired nurse on 14.01.2010.) I’m not in the healthcare industry, but I know a few people who are, and all of them honorable. Nursing is difficult sometimes thankless job, and I don’t think many are in it just for the money.
Aside from legislation that gives nurses the right to organise, (which can save lives as well as wages) I think we should look into some other laws that can help many. The organisation Remote Area Medical http://www.ramusa.org/about/mission.htm gives people free treatment for small ailments they cannot afford to fix, small things like pulling teeth, or new glasses and etc., the founder Sam Brock (a ridiculously modest/humble person) described on a talk show, how their doctors or nurses had to be certified in each U.S. state they visited to volunteer their services, so they had to recruit volunteers from each state they wanted to help or they couldn’t.
If they were performing heart surgery or something that might make sense, but for these procedures it seems a little overboard, especially during these times.
This has to be adjusted somehow. I’m not an expert in this, but there’s got to be a way.
And, best regards to the nurses in Haiti I know that just doing your job makes a positive difference, and that’s alot to be proud of.