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The Alaska Nurse Circulation 8,000 to every Registered Nurse, Licensed Practical Nurse and Student Nurse in Alaska Volume 56 No. 1
The Official Publication of the Alaska Nurses Association
Alaska Nurse Alert System Alaska Nurses Association and Alaska Section of Public Health Nursing Partner to Reactivate the Alaska Nurse Alert System Shortly after the 9/11 attacks the Alaska Nurses Association, the Alaska Section of Public Health Nursing, the Alaska State Board of Nursing, the Alaska Chapter of the American Red Cross and the Municipality of Anchorage partnered to establish the Alaska Nurse Alert System. The Nurse Alert System is a registry of nurses ready to volunteer in case of emergencies where nursing services are required. The Alaska Nurses Association sent out the original request for nurse volunteers and managed the database of nurses who responded. The other partners were supposed to take over coordination and training of the volunteers but that aspect of the system turned out to be weak. The Alaska Section of Public Health Nursing did utilize the Nurse Alert registry after hurricane Katrina, when it appeared there might be a need for nurses from Alaska. Many nurses generously responded to the Section’s request for volunteers, although in the end, the State did not need to send them.
After hurricane Katrina, the Section of Public Health Nursing contacted the Alaska Nurses Association about reactivating and improving the Nurse Alert System. All the parties involved agreed there should be a paid staff person to coordinate the registry and facilitate ongoing training of registry participants and other nurses interested in disaster response. In the next few months, you may get a request in the mail or over the Internet to consider joining or renewing your registration for the Nurse Alert Registry. We encourage every nurse to give careful thought as to whether they are able and willing to respond should the need arise. As of this writing a memorandum of agreement is being developed by the Alaska Nurses Association and the Alaska Section of Public Health Nursing that will allow for the hiring of a coordinator for the Nurse Alert System to be located at the Alaska Nurses Association. For further information contact AaNA at 907-274-0827.
Chemtrina: Direct Hits, Near Misses, and Opportunities for Prevention Barbara Sattler, RN, DrPH, FAAN The aftermath of Katrina has brought to the nation’s attention several critical issues. In addition to the plight of the poor and forgotten, two other inter-related problems were highlighted. First, despite huge sums of money having been Barbara Sattler spent on Homeland Security, we were clearly not prepared for a “mass casualties” event and second, the stores of toxic chemicals in our industries, in local commerce, in homes, and generally in our communities, clearly pose a significant risk even during natural disasters. Health care providers throughout the south were caught without a planned response to both the quantity and quality of health-related events following Katrina. Long before Katrina there was general consensus that a really big storm could become a “wet one of mass destruction” in New Orleans. Similarly, there has been general agreement about the cracks in the public infrastructure and its ability to
withstand a really big “storm.” The vulnerability of both the levy and the public health infrastructure became quickly evident in the face of Katrina’s ravages. There are lessons to be learned from the tragic events immediately following our 9/11 experience regarding the vulnerability of recovery and clean-up workers. Equally importantly there is the opportunity to rebuild the coastal south in a way that we would never have imagined possible. And there is a role for nurses in all of the above. Chemical Emergency Preparedness Homeland security efforts arose out of the horrific events of 9/11. But long before 9/11, in fact in 1986, Congress recognized that the toxic chemicals in our communities could pose a great risk and created the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA). There were several important components to this law. It established the communities’ “right to know” about the hazardous chemicals in our midst—the chemicals being emitted into the air and water and the chemicals being stored on industrial properties. A list of 600 of the most troubling chemicals must now be reported Continued on page 4
February 2006
Nurses Week 2006 Page 3
Compassionate Nursing Page 7
Alaska Statewide Nurses Conference Page 13
Inside This Issue Alaska Nurse Alert System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Chemtrina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Board of Director’s Message. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Nurses Week 2006 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Spotlight: Girdwood Clinic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Alaska Nurses in the News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Compassionate Nursing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Alaska State Board of Nursing News . . . . . . . . 9 Membership Application. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 AaNA Announcements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Welcome New Graduates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Upcoming Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 New Products/Publications/Resources . . . . . . 14
The AaNA Vision Empowering Alaska nurses to be dynamic leaders, powerful in both the health care and political communities.