Duke University Health System officials announced Monday that 44 doctors, nurses and clinicians will be sent to Mississippi to help set up and run a field hospital to support a medical facility battered by Hurricane Katrina.
Twenty-one of the Duke clinicians departed in a government-chartered jet Monday afternoon, and 23 others plan to leave Tuesday.
The group will be stationed near Meridian, Miss.—a town about 150 miles northeast of Biloxi. The medical facility will be located inside an aircraft hangar at the national-guard post Key Air Field and house 250 beds.
Once set up, clinicians will be able to treat most adult and pediatric patients’ ailments.
Duke is acting in response to a request for volunteers issued by the National Institutes of Health, which is setting up about 40 other hospitals in the affected region.
“The extent of last week’s tragedy has become painfully clear,” Dr. Victor Dzau, chancellor for health affairs at Duke and president and CEO of the DUHS, said in a statement. “Federal and state disaster resources have been overwhelmed. Therefore, it is imperative that Duke commit its expertise to the relief effort. Our response must be rapid, sustained and, in every moment, compassionate.”
Among the doctors sent to Mississippi are specialists in emergency medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, surgery, cardiology, obstetrics and gynecology. Equipment is being provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Monday’s announcement comes on the heels of the deployment Friday of five DUHS medical personnel to a similar location near Gulfport, Miss.
This first wave of medical personnel included nurses and emergency medical technicians, in coordination with the DUHS Trauma Center, who responded to the North Carolina Office of Emergency Management request for help.
The five-person team will remain in the area for one week and be replaced by other Duke personnel early next week, Claudia McCormick, director of Duke’s trauma program, said Sunday. Duke officials will remain in the area on a rotating basis treating patients for an estimated six or seven weeks.
The University’s volunteers are being aided by 95 other health officials drawn from around the state.
As workers begin assessing the massive damage Katrina caused along the U.S. Gulf Coast and assisting in recovery efforts, Duke has also started to coordinate relief efforts through various avenues on campus.
Administrators are brainstorming and organizing ways to provide help for victims of the hurricane.
Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta said Monday he has gathered a group of officials—tentatively called the Gulf Coast Task Force—from Duke’s various schools, divisions and services that will determine what the University can do to provide help, aside from student initiatives.
Community members will also meet Tuesday in two open meetings—one at noon in Von Canon Room C of the Bryan Center and another at 9 p.m. in the Upper East Side of The Marketplace—to discuss student relief efforts.
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