Heart to Heart and Docs Who Care |
Issue 12 June 2011 |
Few in Kansas will ever forget the massive tornado that destroyed the town of Greensburg in 2007. With the hospital destroyed, members of Docs Who Care were at the forefront of delivering medical care following the devastating F5 tornado, and stayed on the scene for weeks until the community could establish a temporary hospital.
Now, four years later, the Midwest has been hit with yet another killer tornado. This time it was Joplin, Missouri, a much larger city.
Ironically, I was covering the ED in Greensburg, Kansas, on Sunday night, May 22, when we got the news about a tornado hitting Joplin. DWC providers started calling our office immediately, offering their help. One doctor traveled to Joplin to volunteer within a few hours of the tornado. After finishing my shift on Monday morning, I headed for Joplin with Heart to Heart International’s Mobile Medical Clinic.
The EOC (Emergency Operations Center) asked us to set up our mobile clinic in the parking lot of the completely destroyed Home Depot, where search and rescue teams were searching for survivors and bodies. As the search and rescue operations wound down, we were then asked to move our clinic to an area that had become a distribution point for food, water, and supplies.
This is becoming a “permanent” temporary home for us. EOC officials have named our clinic one of four official triage centers. The Health Department is referring patients to us for tetanus vaccinations and Walgreen’s pharmacy is setting up a double-wide trailer next to our mobile clinic to serve as the neighborhood pharmacy. DWC doctors and midlevels are volunteering to work one-week stints in Joplin. Hundreds of people are being seen everyday in Heart to Heart International’s Mobile Medical Clinic.
If you are interested in volunteering with Heart to Heart in Joplin, or Haiti, or elsewhere, please contact Eddie Meyer at medicalvolunteers@hearttoheart.org, or by calling (913) 764-5200.
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