A Message from the Kane County Medical Reserve Corps

Everyone can do something…….President Bush created the USA Freedom Corps to foster a culture of service, citizenship and responsibility.  He asked all Americans to make a lifetime commitment of at least 2 years (4000 hours) to serving their neighbors and their nation.  The Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) is one way to fulfill this opportunity to help. 

The Medical Reserve Corps is the component of the Citizen Corps that brings together local health professionals and others with relevant health related skills to volunteer in their community.  Non medical volunteers are needed to support the disaster effort. These volunteers will assist the local, existing community emergency medical response system, as well as provide a group of readily trained and available resources to help the community deal with pressing public health needs and improvements. 

The MRC’s purpose is to augment medical and support staff shortages dealing with situations that have significant public health consequences. Non health care providers will assist with transportation of supplies, victim assistance and record keeping.
 

Q: Why is a Medical Reserve Corps needed here in Kane County?
A: In a large scale disaster we would need hundreds if not thousands of qualified, affiliated volunteers to help.   

Q: What does affiliated and qualified mean?
A: For the attacks on September 11^th, thousands of “qualified, professional” volunteers were turned away because they were either not affiliated or not coordinated for the disaster response. Instead of helping, they hindered the response.

One thing that changes in an act of terrorism is that the disaster automatically becomes a crime scene.  This means that only persons with the authority to be there can be allowed.

We don’t know if the next large scale disaster will be a terrorist event but by building a Corps of professionals that have already been trained and screened, we can increase the efficiency of our emergency response to any situation by not having to screen and credential volunteers  on top of responding to the emergency.

Q: What is the time commitment for being a Medical Reserve Corps volunteer?
A: Starting April of 2008, MRC Volunteers must complete basic training within 9 months:

            MRC 101 plus Personal Preparedness – a three hour scheduled session

CPR/AED Training – must maintain a current status, volunteers can obtain on own or attend sessions sponsored by Kane County

First Aid Training - must maintain a current status, volunteers can obtain on own or attend sessions sponsored by Kane County

ICS 100 – can be completed online or by attending a training sponsored by Kane County

For those volunteers looking to increase their role in response, more training will be required.

Volunteers are requested to participate in county drills and be available to respond to local emergencies.

Q:  What types of service projects do the volunteers perform?
A: The volunteers can help by being peer mentors for information on different public health initiatives such as West Nile Virus, Emergency Preparedness, Monkey pox, SARS, and Tuberculosis. Volunteers are needed for recruiting and planning drills.

Q: Besides the required training, what other activities will MRC Members participate in?
A:  Different communities are required to demonstrate preparedness including Kane County.  MRC members will be requested to act as victims, medical responders, logistical assistants, and transporters during these drills to better prepare all agencies in caring for the community.

Kane MRC would like to increase the training of our volunteers to better educate the community. Some of these include:  Decontamination procedures, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Disaster Ethics, and Disaster Mental Health.  These skills would be extremely valuable in the event of a large scale incident for both the safety of the volunteer and efficiency of an emergency response.