Nurses Respond in the Wake of the StormBWH Nurse - For and about the Nursing Staff of Brigham and Women's HospitalNurses Respond in the Wake of the StormBWH Nurse - For and about the Nursing Staff of Brigham and Women's Hospital

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Nurses Respond in the Wake of the Storm

Two BWH nurses made trips to the Gulf area as part of the massive relief efforts following Hurricane Katrina. Corrine Miller-Foster, RN, of BWH's Emergency Department, made three trips south with the Massachusetts Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT), and Rhonda Martin, RN, MPH, of the Float Pool, was deployed with an American Red Cross (ARC) public health assessment team.

“I'm so thankful the hospital, our nurse managers and the entire nursing department support us and encourage us to take part in these relief efforts,” Martin said. “We're all fortunate to be part of an innovative and community-spirited hospital.”

Martin, who has responded with international relief efforts to the Dominican Republic, East Africa and Nepal, spent two weeks in Mississippi and northern Louisiana last month. She served on a team of eight clinicians that worked with state health officials in developing and implementing infectious disease assessment and surveillance tools for shelters.

“We spent brutally long days canvassing 140 shelters, visiting each one and assessing their needs,” Martin said. The ARC team trained shelter staff and managers to recognize symptoms of infectious diseases during 12- to 16-hour days.

Miller-Foster made two trips to the Gulf area, including one trip that began before Katrina made landfall as DMAT was mobilized days before the hurricane unleashed its devastation on New Orleans. Her first trip began in Alabama from where they drove 10 hours to Mississippi and Hattiesburg Forest General Hospital, a level two trauma center without running water and getting its power from backup generators.

“We set up tents similar to a little MASH unit, a mini-ED, and then we went to Biloxi and bounced back and forth between two hospitals,” Miller-Foster said. During her travels, Miller-Foster was shocked to see the destruction.

During her second two-week deployment, Miller-Foster was stationed at the West Jefferson Medical Center, one of three operating hospitals in New Orleans after the hurricane forced the closure of the city's 14 other hospitals. The 35 clinicians in Massachusetts DMAT triaged between 200 and 300 patients per day while immunizing another 300 to 800 patients daily.

In mid-October, Miller made a third trip to the region with DMAT, and BWH's Terry Trasko, RN, joined her.