RNRN The first direct-care RN disaster response network RNRN deploys and provides support for volunteer nurses when disaster strikes. With RNRN, nurses can focus on providing patient care. RNRN takes care of everything else, raising funds to cover airfare and lodging, and facilitating out-of-state licensure. RNRN conducts educational courses examining the RN’s unique ability to be the driving force in pressing for universal healthcare and disaster preparedness/response standards. JOIN THE RNRN TEAM! www.rnresponsenetwork.org 1-800-578-8225 The power of nurses helping nurses respond when disaster strikes. www.rnresponsenetwork.org 1-800-578-8225 The power of nurses helping nurses respond when disaster strikes. “ Until now, nurses haven’t had their own disaster response organization— meaning the most capable of volunteers have sometimes been turned away during times of the greatest need. Dozens of nurses gathered in Portland Monday to join the new Registered Nurse Response Network. ” — Oregon Public Broadcasting News, February 5, 2007 “ We have learned from our experience in Hurricane Katrina that the kind of skills needed in the weeks and months following a disaster are nursing skills. The kind of care that’s needed is everyday care, and things are exacerbated by the lack of medication and basic first aid. Something that was preventable ends up a life-threatening situation. Nurses are the heart of a long-term recovery effort. ” — Deborah Burger, RN, NNU Council of Presidents, Kaiser Santa Rosa, CA 2000 Franklin Street, Oakland CA 94612 www.rnresponsenetwork.org Registered Nurse Response Network It’s our mission. Make it yours.
Transcript
RNRN The first direct-care RN disaster response network
RNRN deploys and provides support for volunteer nurses when disaster strikes. With RNRN, nurses can focus on providing patient care.
RNRN takes care of everything else, raising funds to cover airfare and lodging, and facilitating out-of-state licensure.
RNRN conducts educational courses examining the RN’s unique ability to be the driving force in pressing for universal healthcare and disaster preparedness/response standards.
JOIN
THE R
NR
N TEA
M!
www.rnresponsenetwork.org
1-800-578-8225
The power of nurses
helping nurses respond when
disaster strikes.
www.rnresponsenetwork.org 1-800-578-8225
The power of nurses helping nurses respond when disaster strikes.
“ Until now, nurses haven’t had their own disaster response organization—meaning the most capable of volunteers have sometimes been turned away during times of the greatest need. Dozens of nurses gathered in Portland Monday to join the new Registered Nurse
Response Network. ” — Oregon Public Broadcasting News,
February 5, 2007
“ We have learned from our experience in Hurricane Katrina that the kind of skills needed in the weeks and months following a disaster are nursing skills. The kind of care that’s needed is everyday care, and things are exacerbated by the lack of medication and basic first aid. Something that was preventable ends up a life-threatening situation. Nurses are the heart
of a long-term recovery effort.”— Deborah Burger, RN,
NNU Council of Presidents, Kaiser Santa Rosa, CA
200
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Street, O
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Registered Nurse Response Network
It’s our mission. Make it yours.
YES! I want to join the RN Response Network
I want to attend an upcoming continuing education class or event in my area.
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HOSPITAL OR EMPLOYER (NAME & LOCATION)
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YES! I want to join NNU Start my complimentary subscription to National Nurse, The Voice of National Nurses United. Enclosed is my $50 membership fee (check payable to NNU).
Detach and mail this form to: RN Response Network
2000 Franklin Street, Oakland, CA 94612
1-800-578-8225
To join online, visit: www.rnresponsenetwork.org
RNRN The power of nurses helping nurses on the long-term road to recovery
Providing follow-up medical care and rebuilding a community’s healthcare infrastructure after a major disaster is a long-term process. Our relief operation set up clinics in Sri Lanka, working hand-in-hand with the local RN labor union long after most relief organizations left, and sent volunteers to the Gulf Coast states for several months following Hurricane Katrina.
In Haiti, nurses were dispatched to relieve exhausted RNs aboard the naval medical ship USNS Comfort, and treated the most severely injured in the first weeks following the disaster.
Teams of volunteer RNs also worked alongside local Haitian doctors and nurses at a hospital in Northern Haiti in the months following the quake.
As a direct result of our volunteers’ stellar work aboard the USNS Comfort in Haiti, RNRN was invited to participate in Continuing Promise 2010 with the Department of Defense. RN volunteers lived aboard the USS Iwo Jima, working aboard the ship and in makeshift clinics on land. RNRN volunteers treated thousands of patients in eight different countries, including Haiti.
RNRN also supported the relief efforts in Japan after the March 11, 2011 devastating earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis.
“ I was part of a group of orthopedic surgery nurses sent by RNRN to relieve nurses on the naval ship USNS Comfort, some of whom had been working around the clock without a break for three days. When I arrived there were 200 people waiting for surgery, and in one month the team performed 800 surgeries.
In the two weeks I was there I saw one sunset.”— Tim Thomas, RN
Watsonville Community Hospital, CA
“My heart went out to the people of Haiti and I knew that I needed to be there. RNRN heard my call and gave me an avenue of action so
that I could make a difference.” — Ashley Forsberg, RN
Sparrow Hospital, Lansing, MI
RNRN is a project of the California Nurses Foundation (CNF)*, working in cooperation with National Nurses United (NNU). NNU is the nation’s largest and fastest growing union of direct-care RNs, representing more than 165,000 RNs in all 50 states. At last the nation’s RNs have a voice—and a movement!
We are our patients’ safety net. RNs are in a unique position to continue our long and proud history as social advocates, fighting for and providing equitable healthcare for all.
*CNF is a nonprofit, founded in 1971, dedicated to charitable, scientific, and educational purposes.
IT’S OUR MISSION. MAKE IT YOURS.
RNRN Our historyThe seeds of RNRN were planted firmly in the minds of the California Nurses Association in the days following the 2004 South Asian tsunami when we received hundreds of calls from RNs across the nation frustrated by the scarcity of volunteer opportunities for direct-care nurses.
When Hurricane Katrina hit the following year, CNA took action. By the time the flood waters were receding, more than 300 RNs were placed in understaffed public hospitals, triage clinics, and other facilities throughout the Gulf. When nurses returned to their own communities, they vowed to change the way disaster relief occurs in this country. RNRN was launched the following year.
When the devastating 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti in 2010, National Nurses United successfully took RNRN to the next level as a national organization. There was an unparalleled, astounding response with over 12,000 RNs volunteering to participate in the relief effort.
RNRN Action, not red tape“ RNRN has allowed me to help people affected by disasters in Sri Lanka, the Gulf Coast, and Guatemala. Each experience has had a lasting effect on me. It takes a leap of faith to sign up to deploy with unfamiliar people and uncertain living conditions. When Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005, I was in the initial group deployed by RNRN to Mississippi immediately after the storm. Katrina was especially disturbing; to see such enormous devastation first hand in the US affected us all. I urge all nurses to become involved because we will be the ones on the front lines when, not if, disaster strikes.”
