Nonprofit seeks KC-area health care workers to volunteer one week in rural hospitals
A Johnson County-based nonprofit is asking healthcare workers in the Kansas City area and nationwide to volunteer one week of their time to help out in overtaxed hospitals.
Since April, COVID Care Force has been organizing medical workers to travel around the country and even internationally to help respond to the coronavirus pandemic. Those volunteers usually volunteer at a hospital and stay for at least two weeks, said founder Gary Morsch.
Now, as hospitals become more strained, holidays approach and widespread vaccine distribution is months away, the group is working with hospitals to send volunteers for only one week. Morsch said the current goal is to connect Kansas City area healthcare workers with hospitals in rural areas within a day’s drive, but the group won’t say no to healthcare workers and hospitals in other states.
Morsch announced the latest effort at a news conference Friday at the group’s Olathe office.
“The idea is to get healthcare professionals to say I can give one week ... until we truly turn a corner and the hospitals start saying we can see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Morsch said.
The project, called Operation Covid Relief: A Holiday Blitz, will launch Dec. 18. Morsch said he expects to be taking volunteers until March. The greatest need, he said, is for nurses.
Morsch said the focus is on rural hospitals because they don’t have large staffs to withstand the increased demands of the pandemic. But he will also take requests from urban hospitals if they come.
“The whole idea is what can healthcare workers do over the next three months to help to ease the burden of exhausted and sick healthcare workers just outside their urban door,” he said.
Docs Who Care, another organization founded by Morsch that provides healthcare workers to rural hospitals, will help coordinate the effort, Morsch said.
In addition to volunteers, Covid Care Force is seeking donations to cover travel costs.
This story was originally published December 11, 2020 at 2:45 PM.
