Northwell Well being is sending 22 palettes of medical and catastrophe reduction provides to areas in Syria and Turkey that had been devastated by the 7.8 magnitude earthquake final month. The earthquake left greater than 48,000 lifeless and thousands and thousands displaced in a catastrophe that compounded by high-magnitude aftershocks within the areas, together with a 5.6 magnitude final week.
“We’re all a part of one international household,” Michael Dowling, president and CEO of Northwell Well being, stated in a press release. “And when there’s one a part of the household in extreme misery, we as a healthcare group must be involved about individuals in different elements of the world.”
Northwell has despatched palettes of reduction provides beforehand, together with a 12 months in the past to Ukraine, after Russia had invaded its neighbor. Now, within the Turkey-Syria reduction effort, Northwell gathered group members gathered with the Republic of Turkey Consul Normal Reyhan Ozgur on the well being system’s distribution heart in Bethpage on Friday to debate the provides going to that area.
The well being system is partnering with Medshare to move provides from New York into the affected areas. Northwell’s Heart for World Well being is networking with native leaders on the bottom to fund reduction efforts the place they’ll make the best impression.
On this effort, Northwell is working with worldwide companions that embrace Médecins Sans Frontières – identified in america as Docs With out Borders – to supply direct medical care to survivors and folks in want of fundamental care.
“We’re gathering specialised provides which are tough to acquire domestically, issues like dialysis kits, trauma provides that at the moment are already strained in Europe due to the struggle in Ukraine,” Dr. Eric Cioe Peña, director of the Heart for World Well being, stated in a press release.
A Northwell Well being Turkey-Syria reduction fund was created to deliver direct equitable monetary help to the catastrophe areas.
Abit Soylu is a Northwell paramedic, whose household lives in Turkey, misplaced his cousin and her son when their house collapsed within the preliminary earthquake.
“It’s arduous for me as a result of I’m not there and I’m heartbroken right here not having the ability to assist them,” he stated in a press release. “It took 5 days for them to search out them within the rubble.”
Different staff on the Bethpage warehouse included Amen Alhadi, a flight paramedic with Helicopter Emergency Medical Providers, who has household in Syria, and Dr. Anas Sawas, an emergency medication doctor at Mather Hospital in Port Jefferson, who spoke concerning the restricted humanitarian entry into Syria from the civil struggle, now strained by the earthquake.
Additionally on the occasion had been Dr. Onat Akin, a Northwell pathologist with household in Turkey, and Dr. Banu Aygun, a pediatric oncologist at Cohen Youngsters’s Medical Heart. They stated kids within the area at the moment are at medical danger due to an absence of entry to care and clear water. Scabies and cholera can unfold rapidly and different sickness from lack of vaccinations.
“Except for dropping their houses, their faculties, their pals, a few of them are sadly orphans,” Aygun stated in a press release. “The bodily scars are very huge, however the psychological scars are a lot deeper.”
Northwell goals to duplicate the reduction efforts it delivered to Ukraine to the areas devastated by the earthquake.
“We’re a culturally dynamic well being system,” Peña stated. “Like in Ukraine, working with MSF and our teammates that hail from these areas will assist us construct sustainable relationships to get supplies and funds to the proper place and take care of extra individuals.”
Northwell Well being deployed its built-in telehealth service to supply 24/7 help to healthcare suppliers in Ukraine to seek the advice of and supply steering on civilian and navy affected person care. This system offered greater than 350 consults to clinicians caring for sufferers of blast damage and gunfire, to ladies with perinatal care wants and sufferers awaiting organ transplant.
“Once we launched this program, we rapidly realized that utilizing this as a peer-to-peer platform supplied essentially the most profit and impression to the medical neighborhood in Ukraine,” Peña stated.
It’s the sort of help that will go a good distance in Turkey and Syria.
“We’ve got an obligation and duty,” Dowling stated. “It’s a part of the tradition of Northwell. Any time anybody is in bother – whether or not it’s home or abroad – we do our greatest to assist.
“If now we have the power and the assets to assist – and we clearly have the desire – then we must always assist,” Dowling stated. “That’s why we’re within the well being care enterprise. We are able to’t all the time be trying inner – now we have to look exterior. It’s one thing we’ve all the time achieved, it’s one thing we all the time do.”
To donate and help the Northwell Well being CGH Turkey/Reduction fund go to: https://help.northwell.edu/center-for-global-health