(Posted 10-18-99)
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
News Service Contact: Deborah Durkee, 336-334-5371

RED CROSS HONORS UNCG NURSING FACULTY
FOR COORDINATING DISASTER NURSE PROGRAM
 
By Deborah Durkee

GREENSBORO--The suffering left across North Carolina by Hurricane Floyd demonstrates first-hand the need for trained disaster relief nurses.

On any disaster, nurses stay in touch with suffering families, help replace lost medical supplies and take care of other volunteers. The American Red Cross recognized the need for trained nurses before Floyd left much of eastern North Carolina waterlogged and ruined.

In the fall of 1998 the Disaster Nurse Volunteer Program began in the School of Nursing at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro — the first joint program in the nation between the American Red Cross and a school of nursing.

In September the Red Cross honored the coordinator of that program. Mary Jo Helfers, a clinical assistant professor of nursing at UNCG, received the Jane Delano Award from the American Red Cross for outstanding contributions to nursing. More than 40 UNCG nurses have completed training for the volunteer program.

"It was a humbling experience," Helfers said. "I received the award for coordinating the UNCG/Red Cross partnership program for students interested in serving as nurse volunteers in Red Cross disaster relief efforts."

When the Red Cross goes to a disaster such as the devastation left by Floyd, it requires a massive volunteer effort consisting of mental health workers, nurses and social workers. The international agency responds to 50,000 disasters in this country each year said Ed Powers, chapter coordinator of disaster volunteers with the Greensboro Chapter of the American Red Cross. Those numbers create a great need for qualified Red Cross nurses.

The Disaster Nurse Volunteer Program at UNCG was the brainchild of Powers and Duncan Hutchinson, director of Disaster Health Services at the Greensboro Chapter. The goal is to provide students an opportunity to be qualified Red Cross nurses upon graduation from nursing school.

 "We took the idea to Mary Jo, and she just took it from there," Powers said. "She made the arrangements with the dean of the nursing school, recruited students and has taken the necessary training.  She was the key to making it happen."

In May, 42 UNCG graduating nurses completed the requirements. After they take the state exam to become registered nurses they can also be Red Cross nurses. LaToya Lowery of Thomasville and Jennifer Rock of Greensboro, two graduates of the  UNCG program, were the first to receive their Red Cross pins at a ceremony on Sept. 28.

"Those graduates who stay locally will become a resource for the Red Cross in the local area and could be called upon when we have a disaster here," Powers said. "Wherever these nurses go, their Red Cross pin in nursing will allow them to immediately move into the local community as Red Cross nurse volunteers."

Single family fires make up most of the 50,000 disasters the Red Cross responds to each year in the United States, and it's the job of the local Red Cross chapter to respond.  Disasters, such as the hurricane trio that has smashed North Carolina this fall, require more than local volunteers. So far, the Red Cross has sent 1,700 people there Powers said.

"No one state has 1,700 trained Red Cross volunteers," he said. "That's when they go to the national network."
 Powers is in eastern North Carolina right now where Red Cross nurses, social workers and mental health workers have teamed up to work with suffering families. In cases such as Floyd, nurses visit homes, hospitals or set up sites where the injured can visit them.

"On any job, nurses are a major component of disaster services," Powers said.  "After the UNCG program model is recognized, this is something other Red Cross chapters would want to model."

Back to the Latest News Releases
Return to the University News Service Home Page