RNRN volunteers work alongside military clinicians on the USNS Comfort for a humanitarian mission
By E’Louise Ondash, RN, contributor
April 13, 2015 – It was after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti that Tim Launius, RN, signed on with Registered Nurse Response Network (RNRN) as a volunteer nurse to be called in times of disaster.
Tim Launius, RN, joined the Registered Nurse Response Network (RNRN) after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, and is now serving his second volunteer mission.
“Like a lot of things you sign up for, I never thought they’d call me,” said the 54-year-old ICU nurse who works for the University of Michigan Health Center in Ann Arbor.
But they did call him, and now Launius is part of Continuing Promise–an ongoing humanitarian mission founded in 2007 as a joint effort between the U.S. Navy, U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, civilian mariners and a coalition of non-governmental organizations like RNRN. Civilian nurse volunteers work side-by-side with the military on two hospital ships, the USNS Mercy and the USNS Comfort.
In addition to providing health care, veterinary and small-scale engineering projects to underserved populations, the ships’ missions also provide disaster-response training for both military and civilians. Sometimes they must cut short their non-disaster missions to respond to a disaster.
Launius and four other volunteer nurses from RNRN are currently on the USNS Comfort as it travels to 11 Latin American and Caribbean countries providing medical, dental, laboratory, surgical, veterinary and engineering services.
“Today, I’m onshore to help run a general clinic that will see several hundred patients,” Launius said in a phone interview late last week from Belize. “There were over a hundred people lined up before we got here today.”
Some of the patients they see in these clinics are chosen to have surgery on the ship, where Launius works with the surgical team. He said he signed on for Continuing Promise for the same reason he switched professions 16 years ago.
“I went into nursing to serve those who are forgotten by the health care system,” said the former environmental consultant. “In 1993, my mother was in the ICU and I looked at the nurses and said this looks a lot better than what I’m doing.”
This is not Launius’ first assignment with RNRN. He was called to duty in 2013 after Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) blew into the Philippines, killing more than 6,300 people.
Amy Bowen, RN, is currently using her skills as a second-time volunteer with Continuing Promise, serving people in 11 Latin American countries.
“I had never been to Asia before,” Launius remembered. “We came a month after the typhoon and were on an island south of Luzon in a rural area. We partnered with the local [Catholic] diocese to set up clinics. Six or eight nurses and four or five doctors saw 300 people a day. [With Continuing Promise], we have far more resources than we did in the Philippines.”
RNRN was created by the National Nurses United and the California Nurse Foundation after the December 2004 earthquake and tsunami in South Asia that killed 230,000 people in 14 countries. This event demonstrated the need for a coordinated effort to send nurses to areas that have suffered devastating disasters.
RNRN volunteer Amy Bowen, RN, also is aboard the USNS Comfort, working at onshore clinics and caring for post-op patients.
“It’s an amazing feeling to be able to help someone and to see them walk away, knowing they are in a better position,” said Bowen, an emergency room nurse from Lake Ozark, Mo. “It’s such a rewarding trip. The [people we treat] show so much appreciation. I just want to help as much as I can.”
Bowen came to the nursing profession 10 years ago after witnessing a “terrible accident on the highway and I didn’t know how to assist the people. At that very moment, I knew I had to change my life direction and go to nursing school, so I did, and here I am.”
Bowen’s first stint with Continuing Promise was in 2010 in Suriname. The experience was so positive that she signed on again.
Lauri Hoagland, NP, will be aboard the USNS Comfort in September for her second deployment with Continuing Promise.
“I love using my skills to help others in need,” she said. “We are so blessed in the United States. It’s so amazing to be able to go to these countries and offer them life-changing medicine.”
Other RNRN volunteers on the USNS Comfort are Danielle Rodgers, RN, a float nurse from Duluth, Minn.; Joanna Josue, NP, from Los Angeles, Calif.; and Juan Orias, RN, an ER nurse from Sacramento, Calif.
Lauri Hoagland, NP, will be joining the USNS Comfort in September on her second deployment with the ship. In 2010, she spent many hours administering primary care to children and adults in Costa Rica, where clinic lines also were long.
“I have a curiosity and a great interest in how health care works in other places,” said the nurse veteran of 36 years who currently works in schools and clinics in Medford, Ore. “Also, you learn about tropical medicine and you see things that you just don’t see [in the United States].”
At this point, Hoagland has no idea where she’ll be working when the September mission gets underway.
“You have to be willing to go wherever they go,” she said. “It’s also exciting to work with ‘professional volunteers.’”
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