Nobody wishes for more disasters to occur. But when they do occur, it’s the dedicated nurses and travel nurses who play a crucial role in not only disaster preparedness, but also in disaster response.
This became very evident during Hurricane Katrina. Health problems were magnified exponentially, hospitals were overflowing with patients and temporary shelters were built to alleviate the pressure on what little of the healthcare system remained.
Much of the need to deliver competent medical care fell on the 2,000,000 members of the home-care and travel nurse community. Like travel nurses, home-care nurses are trained to provide patients with quality care in nearly any environment. During Katrina, it was these nursing professionals who put the needs of the others before their own needs.
But along with revealing the supreme dedication that nurses have to their profession and those in need, Katrina also revealed some major barriers that prevented nurses and other caregivers from responding:
- Some nurses, including home-care nurses were not designated as first responders which meant they weren’t allowed into any disaster scenes.
- They did not have priority access to gasoline that would get them to disaster areas in the first place.
- They were not included in state emergency communications networks.
Katrina also left us with questions about nurses working in a different state (other than their home licensing state) during major emergencies. It was unclear whether or not Medicare would provide pay to a nurse who works for an agency in a state outside the sate where the emergency occurred, or even provide health care services in shelters located outside of the licensing state.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, has brought forth legislation that would remove such obstacles and empower home-care agencies and personnel to respond when and where they are needed most. With Sen. Collins’ track record with legislation, the odds are in her favor that her legislation will be passed and each of us will be better off for it.