History

The MRC program was created after President Bush's 2002 State of the Union Address, in which he asked all Americans to volunteer in support of their country. The MRC is comprised of organized medical and public health professionals who serve as volunteers to respond to natural disasters and emergencies. These volunteers assist communities nationwide during emergencies and for ongoing efforts in public health.

The need for trained supplemental medical and public health personnel to assist with emergency operations was highlighted after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Many medical and public health professionals sought to support emergency relief efforts, but there was no organized approach to channel their efforts. The MRC program provides the structure necessary to deploy medical and public health personnel in response to an emergency, as it identifies specific, trained, credentialed personnel available and ready to respond to emergencies.

In February 2006 Pete Kremen, Whatcom County Executive, convened a task force to conduct an inter-organizational planning effort to better understand our community's capacity and adaptability in the event of a sustained emergency. The Whatcom County Pandemic Influenza Task Force membership includes 120 individuals and organizations from a broad cross section of private businesses, government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and community members. The task force worked for several months and identified several key recommendations and one of them is to form a Whatcom County Medical Reserve Corps.

A lot of groundwork has been done. The Whatcom MRC is federally approved and supported and listed on the national website (www.medicalreservecorps.com). The Whatcom County Health Department sponsors the Medical Reserve Corps and is supported by the County Executives office, the Sheriff's Office Division of Emergency Management, the City of Bellingham Department of Emergency Management, and several other organizations in the county.

We will recruit fully licensed individuals who either live or work in Whatcom County. Currently we will only recruit physicians, physician assistants, nurses, pharmacists, paramedics, EMT's, and other licensed medical professionals. This might change later. If you think you may qualify, please contact the MRC coordinator - Dawnette Chadwick via info@whatcommrc.org.

Please understand that our primary goal is to augment the Health Department in case of a major disaster that may overwhelm the department such as the Pandemic Flu, mass vaccination requirements, and surge.

First of all, this is a purely civilian volunteer organization. If you sign up, you will not be required to do anything. You will get out of this organization what you put into it. On the other hand, you will have the capability to contribute significantly in case of a major disaster in the County. However, there are some basic minimal training requirements to assure that we have a minimum of training in emergency response in our county.

We plan to offer disaster training to those who want to participate. The MRC along with other emergency organizations in Whatcom County will provide and make available to MRC Volunteers training that can help assure that you are as prepared as possible for when you might be needed. The training will include MRC Orientation, introduction to the National Incident Management System (NIMS), introduction to the Incident Command System (ICS) and others.

Frequently there are questions about medical liability for MRC volunteers. Medical liability is being addressed by several legislative efforts at the state and federal level. Currently if you are registered with the Whatcom MRC and receive an Emergency Worker Card the State Emergency Worker laws will provide protection. (WAC 118-04 and RCW 38.52)