St. Luke's RN helps bring medical relief to typhoon survivors
Posted on Jan 9, 2014
By St. Luke's, Duluth MN
"They had lost everything and they still wanted to be hospitable and
give us what they could."
Those are the words of St. Luke's ICU registered nurse Anna Rathbun,
who experienced a dose of reverse culture shock when she arrived back
in the U.S. a couple of days before Christmas, having spent two weeks
bringing medical aid to survivors of the November typhoon in the Philippines.
She said that during her visit - a month after Typhoon Haiyan struck the
Philippines – the signs of the typhoon's devastation were still
obvious – homes destroyed by the typhoon lay in ruins, power lines
remained down and debris washed ashore constantly.
Rathbun, who has worked at St. Luke's since 2011, traveled to the Philippines
with RN Response Network, the disaster relief arm of the National Nurses
United union.
She was part of a group made up of five U.S. nurses, from Minnesota, Maine,
Massachusetts, California and Arizona, and about 20 members of a medical
team from Singapore.
"It was really interesting, because we had basically no supplies,"
said Rathbun. "In the ICU I'm used to monitors and all of this
equipment, and stripping all that away and going back to basics and doing
what I could – it was really different."
One of the surprises of the trip for her was that the majority of the patients
they treated were not suffering from illness or injury as a direct result
of the typhoon – but rather, from chronic health conditions, such
as hypertension, diabetes and respiratory issues.
It helped her realize the ongoing need for medical care to the population
– something the RN Response Network will address as it continues
to send out teams of RNs for months to come.
For more information or to donate to the RN Response Network, visit the website:
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/pages/rnrn-disaster-relief-fund
BELOW: Anna Rathbun offering medical aid to typhoon survivors (left) and
back in scrubs at St. Luke's last week (right).