Massachusetts Nurse :: October 2005

MNA nurse goes back to the Louisiana to help victims of Katrina

By Gail McCarth
Reprinted with permission from the Gloucester Daily Times

Donated scrubs, t-shirts and toiletries made their way from the MNA’s Canton office to the Louisiana State Nurses Association immediately following Hurricane Katrina’s terrifying pass through the Gulf Coast.

Jeanine Burns' parents live in Biloxi, Miss., a place nearly wiped out by Hurricane Katrina. But they are safe and are with their grandson, Michael, 13, after being moved from Biloxi to another local town.

But after the hurricane, the Burns family was still trying to find Michael's mother, sister and his baby nephew. They were last seen in Pass Christian, Miss., a coastal community.

This is part of the reason Jeanine Burns left her shift as an emergency room nurse at Addison Gilbert Hospital in Gloucester?an MNA bargaining unit?shortly after the hurricane to begin a journey to Louisiana to attend to the medical needs of Hurricane Katrina victims.

Burns took a three-month leave of absence from her job to volunteer for the Louisiana State Nurses Association. She will be based out of Monroe, which has a shelter with more than 2,000 evacuees, many of whom arrived from New Orleans.
Her parents, John and Dolores, were lucky—to a point.

“Their house is still standing, although it was flooded,” Burns said. “But they lost five neighbors on the street. They're dead.”

Burns is close to her parents, who left Biloxi to stay with other family members near where Burns is working. “I am so fortunate to be based near my family, but we are still searching for others,” she said.

Burns said her entire family is in the South. But her daughter, Lani, and husband Justin Heath of Gloucester, just moved to Manchester, and her partner, John Doberman, is a teacher at a Gloucester middle school.

Her father, a retired Navy serviceman, is from Biloxi where her brother, Paul, has been guarding his parent's house.

After the hurricane, Burns tried for six days to reach someone from the nurses association.

“The nurses there were in dire straights,” she said. “And the nurse I replaced when I first arrived hadn't been off duty since the hurricane first hit.” Burns, who has been residing in a university dorm room, is working 12-hour shifts at the makeshift shelter.

But at some point, she hopes to go work in Biloxi.

To prepare for her absence, Burns celebrated her daughter's 30th birthday a week early and finalized all arrangements.

“I'm missing my daughter's family and my grandchildren Maya and Lelia,” she said.

But her daughter knows her mother's will. Her mother took her feeling of helplessness and turned it into action, Lani Heath said.

“I haven’t had many concerns because I know she’s strong. I think it’s wonderful what’s she’s doing,” said Heath. “My mother is a nurse. She’s a giver, and this is something she felt very strongly about. She’s always been an activist so I’m not surprised she went.”