INSIDE

Medical Reserve Corps forming

By Meg Olson

Doctors, nurses, pharmacists and emergency medical personnel who live in Point Roberts are being asked to sign up for a new medical reserve corps (MRC) that will be part of an organized county-wide response to a major emergency.

“We’re interested in getting anybody with a medical background of any kind,” said local nurse practitioner Virginia Lester.

Lester explained that MRCs had started forming in 2000, but their importance was underscored in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. “Medical personnel went there and couldn’t work because they hadn’t gone through the Red Cross,” she explained.
The Whatcom County MRC is organized through the county health department. Lester said the formation of a local MRC was an offshoot of disaster planning efforts by the Point Roberts Emergency Prepared-ness Committee (PREP). “This is an outgrowth of our work through PREP, but we will be separate,” Lester said.

By joining the MRC and attending free training local medical personnel will be entered in a national registry of health care workers and qualify for liability insurance during disaster work. They will also be briefed on the county’s emergency management plan and what role they would play in an organized response to an emergency, and what resources are available to them.

Lester said an initial group of 12 medical professionals had expressed interest in joining the local MRC. “We are hoping to have them come in and anyone else we haven’t lassoed,” Lester said. “There are a lot of retired people here who I think, I hope, would come out for this sort of thing.”

A first training and registration day is scheduled for April 19, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the community center. For more information and registration materials contact Lester at the Point Roberts Aydon Wellness Clinic, 945-2580, or county MRC coordinator at info@whatcommrc.org.