Volunteers needed to help during local disasters

The Southwest Florida Citizen Medical Reserve Corp wants to increase its volunteer group of health care workers to help treat victims of hurricanes, deadly flu outbreaks and other disasters.

To prepare to meet the natural and manmade threats that can overwhelm a public health and emergency response system. Dr. Patricia Santucci, medical director of the Southwest Florida Citizen Medical Reserve Corps, is looking to organize and train current and former health care providers. Physicians and nurses are needed, but so are pharmacists, dentists, paramedics, clinical social workers, mental health counselors, lab techs, case managers, and veterinarians.

Non-clinical volunteers are also needed to assist the medical teams with everything from greeting people and distributing information to communications and data entry.

"We fill in the gap and get the help where it's needed most," said Santucci. "If there's a crisis and we need two more radiologists and a file clerk at a specific hospital, we can get them there."

The MRC was created in 2002 by the office of the U.S. Surgeon General in response to the outpouring of support for emergency relief efforts after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. People wanted to volunteer, but had no identification as members of an emergency response system, no proof of credentials or training to deal with disasters.

The local MRC is sponsored by the Lee County Health Department and includes Lee, Charlotte, Glades, Hendry, DeSoto and Okeechobee Counties. When deployed by the Health Department, medical volunteers' malpractice liability and workman's comp are covered.

"Being under the Health Department allows us to be part of the bigger picture," said Santucci. "They can send us to other areas of the country to help, like New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, however, most of our activities are of a local nature."

Currently there are 714 units and 147,000 volunteers in local units scattered across the country. These MRC units are community based and function as a way to locally organize and utilize volunteers for healthcare. It provides the structure necessary to preidentify, train, credential and deploy personnel that are available and ready to respond and enables communities to become self reliant, particularly in the first 12- 72 hours, when outside help may not be available.

Orientation classes are scheduled Dec. 12 at Cape Coral Hospital, Jan. 7 at Lee Memorial Hospital and Feb. 13 at HealthPark Medical Center. If you are interested in volunteering, go to www.swflorida.org and complete the on-line registration, or call Steve Fettner, SW Florida Medical Reserve Corps Coordinator at (239) 461-6109.