HHS is no longer accepting individual physician volunteers to help provide care to victims of Hurricane Katrina. However, the department is continuing to accept groups of volunteers that comprise at least five health care professionals or relief workers from a single employer.
More than 33,000 individual physicians responded to the federal call for medical expertise by going to the HHS Web site. The page for individual volunteers, now announces, "At this time, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is NO longer accepting individual medical and relief worker applications."
However, HHS continues to accept groups. These groups are asked to go to hurricanehelp@hhs.gov to send the following information:
- group leader or group point of contact name;
- e-mail address of group point of contact;
- phone number of group point of contact;
- name, city and state for the group or sponsoring organization; and
- the number and types of members -- such as 10 family physicians, seven registered nurses -- that comprise the group.
HHS warns that volunteers must be capable of working 12-hour shifts for 14 days or longer. They must be able to work and live in "austere conditions," such as housing in tents without shower facilities or air conditioning. Food may consist of military ready-to-eat meals. Volunteers' hepatitis B and tetanus/diphtheria immunizations must be current.
"The vast pool of applicants should allow us to meet the needs in the affected areas," HHS says on the volunteer Web page. "The recovery effort will be long, and the current pool of volunteers will be used over the next several months. We ask those who have registered on this site to please be patient as we continue to deploy workers where they will be most helpful."
