By Carrie Hargett
Chattanooga Times Free Press (Tennessee)
Copyright 2007 Chattanooga Publishing Company
DALTON, Ga. — As the North Georgia Medical Reserve Corps reaches its first anniversary this month, the organization is seeking more volunteers for training to help handle potential health emergencies.
The North Georgia unit has 63 active volunteers for six counties, said Joanne Mauro, coordinator of the corps. Volunteers are trained to handle a number of incidents that could put residents’ lives in jeopardy, such as pandemic influenza, natural disaster or chemical spill.
It is part of a national program with 612 units. Each unit is organized to prepare and use local volunteers to help others contend with health crisis issues, officials said.
“The purpose of the program is to be a medical surge for the local community in case of an emergency or crisis,” Ms. Mauro said. “The simple goal is to recruit and train enough local citizens to be able to assist the community in a medical response capability.”
More than 50 percent of the volunteers are from the medical field, but the goal is to have four nonmedical volunteers for every one medical, Ms. Mauro said. The volunteers must be at least 16 years old.
“We have no cap on how many volunteers to have,” she said. “We even have some high school students.”
Medical Corps volunteers in Dalton attended a recent training session on subjects like quarantines, pandemic influenza and for general information on public health, said Jennifer Moorer, public information officer with North Georgia Health District.
“When a disaster happens, so many people want to do something to help out, but often they can’t get plugged in (due to not having proper credentials),” she said. “This allows for people to go ahead and get their credentials and be ready to be of assistance.”
Patti Kelley, an emergency room nurse at Hutcheson Medical Center and corps volunteer, said she has attended several of the training presentations and finds them to be “very informative.”
“Others should definitely get involved, because we (the community) will have to take care of ourselves (during a crisis),” she said.
Federal health officials last week unveiled a ranking system for pandemics, similar to a hurricane rating. A Category 5 flu epidemic could kill more than 1.8 million U.S. residents, according to the index created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Elizabeth Fitch, regional coordinator of the Medical Reserve Corps for eight states in the Southeast, said it is important for the first responder to be properly trained.
“The first people to respond are the people closest to the emergency, so precredentials and pretraining is very important,” she said.
Laura Cleary, emergency services director for the Dalton Whitfield Chapter of the American Red Cross, said she got involved with the corps because it interrelates with her job at the Red Cross.
“At times, they (the corps) would be in use where we (Red Cross) wouldn’t, or we might be in use when they aren’t,” she said.
Ms. Cleary said the corps is organized so it would be effective if disaster were to strike now.
Ms. Moorer said the corps can count on the volunteers, because this is a program they want to participate in and are not being forced to do.
For being less than a year old, Ms. Fitch said she believes the group has made “excellent progress.”
North Georgia Medical Reserve Corps covers Cherokee, Fannin, Gilmer, Murray, Pickens and Whitfield counties, Ms. Mauro said.
The Southeast Tennessee Regional Medical Reserve Corps, which covers 10 counties, officially started in December 2006, but the group has more than 3,000 volunteers due to starting a similar public health program in 2001, said Robert Goff, emergency response coordinator.
“The reason (we changed the original program to be part of the corps) was to give a fresh face on our program,” he said. “Instead of refurbishing ... we became part of a larger unit.”
Mr. Goff said the great aspect of the corps is that each unit is different, and leaders can decide how they want to handle each situation.
“The beauty is you do things the way you want to do it in your unit,” he said.
Out of the 3,000 volunteers, about 10 percent are in the medical field.
Mr. Goff said the corps gives residents who are not in the medical field a great opportunity to receive training for public health emergencies.
Chattanooga and Hamilton County also have a Medical Reserve Corps.
It was created in July 2004 and has more than 2,500 members, said Susan McNabb, volunteer coordinator.