Mass. medical teams heading to Gulf ahead of Gustav

By Stephen Smith, Globe Staff

Two disaster response teams from Massachusetts are bound for Louisiana tonight as Hurricane Gustav churns toward the Gulf Coast, a trip that is returning the doctors, nurses, and other medical workers to familiar terrain.

The medical squads -- one consisting of Boston-area health workers, the other representing central and western Massachusetts -- were dispatched to the same region three years ago, when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita pummeled New Orleans and a broad swath of the Gulf Coast.

Shortly past 5 p.m., registered nurse Gina Smith led nearly three dozen other health workers as they clambered aboard a bus destined for Hanscom Air Force Base. They were scheduled to fly from there to Baton Rouge, La., where they will be stationed as the storm swirls northward.

Smith's contingent, the Massachusetts-2 Disaster Medical Assistance Team, was activated by federal health authorities and told that it will help with evacuations and, after the storm, provide medical care.

"People are excited to be able to go, to be able to help," said Smith, the team commander and emergency preparedness coordinator at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester. "We always get a little restless as we're sitting around waiting for the plans to come through because you want to get there and start making a difference as soon as possible."

As the potential menace posed by Gustav became more evident, the US Department of Health and Human Services alerted the teams Wednesday that their skills would be needed. Tracking maps from the National Hurricane Center suggest that the storm will land on the Gulf Coast -- most likely in Louisiana -- as early as Monday.

The Boston-area contingent includes workers from at least five major teaching hospitals as well as Boston Emergency Medical Services and the Boston Fire Department, said Theresa Gallivan, an associate chief nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, which is among the medical centers providing representatives.

Unlike other missions, when they drove supply-laden trucks to disaster sites, the Massachusetts teams headed to Louisiana with only sleeping gear and some minor medical tools, such as stethoscopes, Smith said. The federal government, she said, is dispatching supplies to Louisiana that the Bay State health workers can use.

"There's a lot of lessons that we've all learned from Hurricane Katrina," Smith said. "And there's an eagerness to return with those lessons and to make our assistance that much stronger."