Disaster Relief Fact Sheet

Disaster Relief Media Contact:

Email media@fmc-na.com
or call 781-699-5280 for a timely response.

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How We Respond to Disasters

Our comprehensive approach to disasters ensures dialysis patients receive the life-sustaining care they need and our employees are safe and supported.

Patients can contact our 24-hour toll-free Patient Emergency Line at any time at 1-800-626-1297.

Patient Resources

How to Prepare in Case of an Emergency: English and Spanish
Emergency Meal Planning: English and Spanish
Personal Information List: English

Our Team

Our Disaster Response Team (DRT) maintains relationships with key local, regional and national entities – Emergency Operation Centers (EOCs), federal, state and local governments, first responders, volunteer organizations, utilities and businesses, so when a disaster strikes, we ensure that critical needs for fuel, water, transportation and other services are prioritized for patients receiving dialysis treatment.
We routinely conduct mock disaster trainings to ensure all parties are aware of protocols and understand their roles and responsibilities so that disaster operations run as smoothly as possible.
Once the DRT has been mobilized, daily update calls with representatives from departments across the company help ensure staff are empowered to take care of our patients quickly and effectively.
Mobilizing local Command Centers in response to a disaster is the backbone of our DRT operations. We bring in leadership from outside the impacted area to run the Command Centers, enabling local leadership to focus on clinic operations. Command Center staff works logistics including accounting for all patients and employees, and arranging for the distribution of food, personal generators and other necessary supplies. Our Renal Therapies Group Distribution Centers are used to stage supplies for shipping and/or distribution to the clinics.

Our Experience

Hurricane Michael		Hurricane Maria
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Our coordinated disaster response team arrived the day after Hurricane Michael struck Panama City, Fla., ensuring that every in-center or at-home dialysis patient in the impacted area, whether a Fresenius Medical Care patient or not, could continue receiving life-sustaining treatment.		We brought in necessary people and supplies to Puerto Rico to serve the needs of our employees and patients, including more than 100 employee relief volunteers from operations staff to nurses.

Hurricane Maria		Hurricane Harvey

In the wake of Hurricane Maria, Miguel Neris, Fresenius Medical Care North America Clinical Manager in Miami Florida, traveled to Puerto Rico to help provide relief to local staff. For Miguel it was a homecoming.		After flooding ravaged Houston, we partnered with a Duck Boat (amphibious vehicle) company in Mobile, Alabama to transport flood-stranded patients to clinics for life-sustaining dialysis treatments.

Hurricane Katrina		2017 Disaster Season

We were able to provide life-sustaining treatments to more than 7,000 displaced patients after Hurricane Katrina, including more than 1,000 non-Fresenius Kidney Care patients.		In the wake of Hurricane Maria, Miguel Neris, Fresenius Medical Care North America Clinical Manager in Miami Florida, traveled to Puerto Rico to help provide relief to local staff. For Miguel it was a homecoming.

How We Support Our Patients		How We Support Our Employees
	Emergency packets: Ahead of a significant storm, we provide patients with emergency packets including a three-day renal diet, a care transition report, a list of labs and medications and our patient emergency phone number.		Housing and transportation: We bring in RVs and campers to provide housing for our employees and/or arrange for temporary housing or vehicles for them.
	Patient emergency line: Patients can contact our 24-hour toll-free Patient Emergency Line at any time at 1-800-626-1297.		Supplies: From bottled water to baby formula, diapers, food, clothes, toiletries and pet food, home supplies and repair items, Command Centers are stocked and open from dawn to dusk for employees in need. Command Center staff also help bring needed fuel and generators for our clinics and our employees’ vehicles and homes.
	Patient contact: Our local teams and our Care Navigation Unit staff contact each of our patients directly to ensure their safety and continuity of care.		Childcare stipends: We assess individual and family/pet care needs of each employee and provide stipends to support their care.
	Preparation: Ahead of a known disaster, our clinics extend hours and add shifts to provide dialysis treatment ahead of the disaster. We also prepare clinics in impacted regions for an influx of transient patients.		Employee support: Our PTO Hardship Fund allows employees to donate available vacation hours to those affected by the disaster, and our FMCNA CARES Fund provides financial assistance up to $2,500 to impacted employees and their families – employees can donate to the fund as well.
	Open door policy: Our doors are open to any patient, regardless of where they usually get their dialysis treatment.		Salary continuance plans: We assess the disaster and provide necessary salary continuance for employees in impacted areas.
	Patient visits: After the disaster, we work to locate patients and make home visits where needed.		Employee volunteers: Extra staff volunteer to work in impacted areas to provide supplemental staffing and support local patient needs.
	Repairs and logistics: If necessary, we will repair or replace dialysis machines and equipment, process lab work from across the country, ship medicines and supplies to where they are needed and provide vascular care to patients to ensure they maintain their vascular access for dialysis.