I have a couple of questions regarding first responders to disaster situations.
Who are those who get paid? Obviously not volunteers, neighbours and good samaritans.
(police, fire, paramedics, doctors, nurses, coast guard, EMT, national guard, armed forces, et al?).
Are there legal implications for the paid personnel who are helping, or is that covered by the organization who is paying them?
Are there legal implications for the volunteers who are just trying to help their fellow man?
As I watched coverage of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma I wondered about legal implications of the responders. Gov. Scott asked for nurses to volunteer to help out at shelters designated for people with special needs. With all the talk about the expense of the disasters (and recovery) and release of special funding and declaring the state a disaster area, I wonder why the need to request nurses (with specific skills) to volunteer rather than to offer to pay nurses for the work.
Based on the answers of the questions above, should a nurse volunteer in a situation like that?
I recognize that those who volunteer are a special breed, and often do so without a second thought. Q4 is more about an expectation from disaster coordinators asking for volunteers rather than temporarily employing skilled workers. Perhaps my confusion is related to how disaster funding is disbursed…ie. where does all the money go?
With one of your Q’s It varies per state, some are legally obligated to provide help. For this reason a emergency medical person will usually always have a CPR mask with them at all times on/off duty. Firefighters don’t have such a obligation usually just due to they are trained to use equipment they will not have with them in protective gear which again they won’t have with them, and they are trained to work as a team, so there is nothing they are able to assist with in a professional sense. They can help, but no legal obligation to, even where there is a legal obligation (since the conditions of what they are trained for can not happen IRL).
So most of the help falls and is usually covered by good Samaritan laws, which offers them legal protection for such things, however even that has it’s issues, like providing medical help beyond one’s training and knowing that you are not properly trained to do that.
I think that you are probably confusing the two different kinds of volunteer. There are people from all walks of life who volunteer to help out in disasters, and they do it with no expectation of reward, although their expenses might be reimbursed, and they will need to be fed and housed for the duration.
The other kind; nurses and fireman, for instance, are ‘volunteering’ to go and do the work they normally do but in a different place. They would probably be paid as if they were working at the place that employs them. This is pretty much the same as when soldiers are asked to volunteer for some extra duty.
When doctors and nurses volunteer to work in a disaster area, does someone verify that they have a valid license before allowing them to start working?
Depends on situation. Nobody is going to want your licences to help do CPR on someone. MD’s and RN’s have actual physical ID cards at least in my state. The agency recruiting them (red cross, aid group, etc) will vet them to some degree. many have standing lists of pre-screened volunteers that they can call on.
The only time I was involved in a disaster response, the ambulance company was asked to provide several ambulances and crews via arrangements with the California Office of Emergency Services. The state runs programs that help fund/support/train equipment and specialized rescue services, heavy rescue teams, haz mat response teams, etc for local services in exchange for being able to call on those units in a crisis. so in my case, I was doing so as part of my employment. The state paid our company to be part of the response.
Many otherwise volunteer agencies (usually firefighters) regularly respond to incidents in “state responsibility areas” this commonly happens with wildland firefighting. When it happens, they are paid by the state for the hours they put in on the fireline.
correct, although good Samaritan laws cover ALOT of wheat first responders do, on the clock or not.
Good samaritan laws cover most of this.
volunteer to leave safe comfy homes and come work in a disaster area…and usually get paid for it.
Medical Doctors carry malpractice insurance that continues to cover them in emergency response situations*. Plus the ‘Good Samaritan’ laws may protect them.
I know from a friend, a retired doctor from a small town in North Dakota, who was a strong supporter of the local high school teams, and had been their designated ‘team doctor’ for 30-some years (unpaid, except for recognition, a seat on the sidelines, etc.). After he retired, and no longer carried the full set of active doctor malpractice coverage, the insurance company would no longer allow him to do this anymore. He had to be just another spectator, who just happened to help out in an emergency.
*Insurance companies started to write ‘exclusions’ into their malpractice policies, to not cover medical people in an emergency situation. So some states have stopped that by adding provisions to their ‘Good Samaritan’ laws or state insurance regulations to prohibit such exclusions.
If City X or Hospital Y or Power Company Z sends their employees to a disaster area, they are almost certainly “volunteers” only in the sense that they volunteered for the assignment and are still being paid by the employer.
When disaster coordinators ask for nurses to volunteer at shelters, that’s a little bit more likely to be a true volunteer situation.
in terms of “volunteer” firefighters, at least in MI that doesn’t mean they’re unpaid. Guy I worked with a couple jobs ago was one. What it means here is that volunteer firefighters and EMTs aren’t full-time staffing a fire station. They’re on call certain times of the week but otherwise have a different regular job. If an alarm comes in they get paged at home and call in for the location of the emergency. then they suit up at home and go directly to where they’re needed. They basically get paid per run.
PCF’s paid call firefighters, there are similar things. They are not volunteers at all they are formally employed by a paid department. There is usually a limited staff on duty 24/7 and the rest of the folks work on-call.