Local teams heading for Gulf Coast

Two medical teams including doctors and nurses from Massachusetts General Hospital who worked at ground zero after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and in Asia after last year's deadly tsunami, are going to the Gulf Coast to aid the sick and injured victims of Hurricane Katrina, an organizer of the mission said yesterday.

Today, about 25 medical personnel from MGH will head to Jacksonville, Fla., where they will board military planes bound for Biloxi, Miss., Dr. Larry Ronan said. About 15 medical personnel from other Boston-area hospitals will join them. Once in Biloxi, they will use equipment that is being sent by military aircraft from Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod to set up a hospital, complete with operating room, Ronan said.

''We're helping for the same reason all of America is," Ronan said. ''It's our own country in need. We did a great job on the tsunami, and we need to do a similar job in the South. They need to know we're there for them."

The team, he said, helped in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks on New York, he said.

On Sept. 13, another medical team, including 21 nurses, two social workers, a pharmacist, and seven doctors, will board the USNS Comfort, a Navy medical ship that is being dispatched to the area, Ronan said. That crew helped in Asia after the tsunami, he said. While the group includes some veterans of past disasters, some new doctors and staff will also join the group, he said, to gain experience in the event of future catastrophes.