Want to help out a medical team from America?

I was forwarded an email from an American medical group that says they have experience working in the 2005 SE Asian tsunami zone, Haiti after their recent big quake, etc. and are now looking for some locals to help them with things like supplies for themselves, transportation, other logistics. Please contact them if you think you can help.

My boss Steve is a former paramedic from NYC, and he and some other paramedics do periodic missions to disaster zones:

http://www.nycmedics.org/

As I understand it, it’s kind of a DIY-style operation, which allows them to move really fast. After the earthquake in Pakistan, they got into remote areas way ahead of anyone else and did a lot of good work.

So, he’s coordinating a trip to Japan and wanted to know if you have any contacts anywhere near Tokyo that could help them with logistics and such. For example, they might need a place to crash, rides, probably a translator, and I’m not sure what else. I’m sure any info or insight you can provide would help.

-Jesse

We’re not quite ‘DIY’ as we do coordinate and work within the overall establishment of the relief effort, but Jesse’s right about our particular mission description, which is to find the underserved communities within the affected area quickly. From experience, we’ve found that these scattered relief ‘deserts’ persist for as long as month after an event of this scale and so we try to get to them quickly and work there until the larger efforts catch up with them. So we send teams of 4-8 MD’s, RN’s, PA’s, and Medics in pretty quickly and they need to be able move pretty quickly(aka, without proper logistical planning) So local contacts that can be called on to help a team are incredibly valuable. If you have any ideas, let us know.

Thanks,

-Steve

Here’s a link to a form that people can fill out if they can help. I will also add you as an editor to that form so you can make any changes to the language that you think would be helpful.

Our group’s facebook page is http://www.facebook.com/NYCMedics and our website is http://nycmedics.org

Our ‘specialty’ is to move quickly to find the underserved areas of the relief effort, which we are absolutely sure are many. In the South Asian earthquake in 2005 and in Haiti last year, there was a tremendous need that was ‘invisible’ to the press and large organizations for many weeks after the event. So we move quickly with a motto of ‘light & lighter’. This model requires help from local resources and our teams often sleep in the homes of strangers and work with anyone who will help them get the job done quickly. So a database of local contacts would be really helpful:)

Thanks for the help,

2 thoughts on “Want to help out a medical team from America?”

  1. I live in Sendai and have signed up and passed on the info. Hope I can be of help. Thanks for your efforts on here.

  2. Donated $1000, bullied family into donating $300, raised another $300. Wish there was something else I could do.

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