Anyone going to Haiti?

[piscesguy]

How will you get there and who are you going with? Are there groups taking RN's and other clinicians down there? Anyone know of anything? I know the military is going, a friend of mine with a small plane is going.... anyone else. I wonder.

[AU-RN]

I am currently on the short list to head out in the next 7-10 days. I am an LVN with 1 year experience in Med Surg and Peds. I went thru Angel Staffing as they seem to be the company thats organizing it here in South Texas.

I hope this helps!

Im surprised they would take a LVN with 1 yr experience. There are RN's with years and years of experience that even speak Creole/French, prior military, and have lived/worked in Haiti before and even they said they have not been contacted to go.

[AU-RN]

i'm a travel nurse. fastaff sent out the following email:

attn: rn's!!!! fastaff is actively recruiting registered nurses for disaster relief in haiti . must be available to travel within 24 hours of notification from fastaff. must be available for a minimum of 2 weeks, expect to be away from home for 16 days with travel. must hold a current u.s. passport - there are no excep...tions. pay is $40.00 per hour (minimum 12 hour shifts for 14 consecutive days) overtime after 40 hours. fastaff requirements:- must have a complete application- must have a current r.n. license- must provide a current bls or cpr card- immunizations record updates - (please provide what is current) - immunizations will be provided thru staging area of deployment.

general information:nurses will fly to san antonio for fastaff orientation and staging -nurses will be transported to a military staging area for processing of records and orientation... [color=#3b5998]see more- nurses must allow required immunizations shots to be administered at staging area-nurses will be transported within 24 hours of arrival in tx to haiti by military transport. tent and cot living conditions. mre - military ready to eat meals is likely all that will be available. must be fast paced, understand the conditions, understand that there is not a guaranteed way to leave if they cannot handle the requirements or environment. should only travel with toiletries and scrubs either call your recruiter directly or 888-337-0600.

i told my recruiter to sign me up! i'm not sure how soon they are sending nurses out.

here is the latest from the fastaff website......sounds like they arent going to be sending anyone to haiti

fastaff continues to be on "standby" with our contracted agency in texas. deployment is not imminent due to preparations needed for field hospital deployment and the increasing international management of the relief effort. this will be a long-term relief effort, so please provide us your information only if you are interested in possible participation in the future.

registering with fastaff does not automatically mean you will be called for the relief effort in haiti, so there is no need to contact fastaff again once you submit the haiti relief form

[AU-RN]

Do you think there would be any need for graduate-nurse RNs who are awaiting taking the boards? I expect to graduate in early May. I am sure there will still be a need for nurses -- would there be a need for me if I had not yet become licensed? I really want to go.

You MUST be a licensed RN and experience is required. The situation down there is not suitable to those without extensive nursing experience-emotionally, mentally, and physically. It is hell down there and not the place for new nurses. Remember that there are thousands of very experienced RN's that are willing to go......they all would be picked first.

[AU-RN]

I'm BSN new graduate awaiting my NCLEX-RN as well (scheduled Feb. 1st) but I feel strongly compelled to go to Haiti, regardless. Is there volunteer organizations taking new graduate nurses??? I joined Red Cross disaster relief about a week before the earthquake in Haiti. My orientation however, is not until this Thursday, either way I doubt I'll be able to go through them.

Experience is the most valuable thing any RN could have in Haiti. It is a must.

[gatherswool]

I'm recently returned from Jimani, a border town in the DR, where I worked at a private clinic-turned-hospital run by a Baptist group treating refugees from PAP. Most came by bus or were (egads) medevaced out to our pitifully tiny and resource-limited clinc/hospital. A few walked the 30 miles from PAP.

There was a patchwork of aid groups there staffing the place when I left, though it looked as though some of the larger groups were starting to take over (a good thing). Most of the volunteers there arrived very shortly after the quake and were experienced. A few started showing up later as freelancers and a few were from inexperienced aid groups. For the inexperienced, I'd say it was 50/50 whether they'd be useful or in the way/harmful. The ones who WERE useful (including most of my group) had a number of things in common -- several years of healthcare experience (not just RNs; we had an LPN and some paramedics with us, too; they were awesome), international experience, experience in resource-limited settings (hey, look! red rubber tubing and a milk bottle! I've got a chest tube!), and experience with "bad outcomes."

For inexperienced volunteers who want to go now: The latter is very important. You may "know," deep down in your heart of hearts, that you can handle watching someone die, watching a small child make sounds you've never heard a human being make while her mother weeps next to her, and that you can care for someone with severe facial burns and a field amputation. But honestly, if you've never seen anything like these things before, it's likely to have an effect on you and you don't know what the effect will be. You could be hurt mentally. You could develop an infection or other illness physically. You could find yourself spiritually compromised. All these things can still happen if you've been there, done that, of course; but then (hopefully) you know what you need in order to cope. Watching another volunteer decompensate and knowing that you're going to have to clean up THAT mess, too, is extremely frustrating -- especially when the other volunteer is a freelance newbie you've never met before.

That said, I walked into Jimani with no disaster experience, and no one in my team had any, either. We'd all seen death, grief, extraordinary wounds (I'm glad I saw my first exposed hamstring on an A&Ox3 individual in the comfy confines of the burn unit and not in the field, for sure), and international medicine before, and everyone slipped into their roles quickly and easily -- they'll need more people like that (and better) for a long time coming. Groups that would love to have experienced trauma people include partners in health (secular), LCMS World Relief (my group; they do expect you to be Christian or at least very comfortable with Christians, but there's no proselytizing), Operation Rainbow and Operation Smile. Good luck, all, and thank you for not forgetting Haiti!

[lperkrn, MSN, RN]

Thank you for this post. This is gives excellent insight and is very helpful especially for inexperienced nurses to evaluate their ability (or not) to help in the relief effort.

[zahryia, LPN]

Here's another organization that welcomes health professionals without a minumim of experience:

http://www.nwhcm.org/northwest-haiti-trips