Team 1: Hatay Türkiye – 9.16.2023
The immensity of the tasks to recovery will take years and are overwhelming. We started in another Syrian camp where there is a lot of healthcare needs and the police came and told us to leave. We still seem to not have permission to help the neediest - which are the Syrian refugees. We packed up and went back to the [...]
Working in Turkey – 9.15.2023
SETTING UP IN TURKEYThe Middle East is in turmoil: earthquake in Morrocco , floods in Libya. It has changed our plans a bit as medical first response teams in Turkey needed to leave for those new disaster zones. Our team split up. Hands On Global has sent three people to deliver supplies in Ukraine and then fly to Turkey. I [...]
Reflections in Lviv, Ukraine – 3.16.23
UKRAINE CONFLICT This morning I was on my own in Lviv, a large urban city in the Ukraine. It feels no different like being in a city center like San Francisco, Budapest, Vienna, Hamburg, etc. I’m thankful we have a place to stay in the city center as it is so easy to be just another person in the shuffle [...]
March 21: Reflections from a Cemetery
UKRAINE CONFILCT Reflections on walking through a cemetery of fresh graves of Ukrainian soldiers.We did not start out looking for this place. Had we known we were going to come across it, we might have shied away. We just walked around a corner and there it was - we were shocked, yet drawn in. A mixture of numbness and nausea, [...]
March 20: To Save a Limb or Not
UKRAINE CONFILCT Spent the day visiting patients. Many are far from families. We brought oranges and chocolate, massaged some hands and toes. We joked and chatted through a translator and hope we eased some of the pain or at least provided a distraction. Some were clearly in a lot of discomfort. Pain is treated with ibuprofen. It is hard to [...]
March 17: Today we met the war
UKRAINE CONFILCT Today we met the war. We drove to Zytomyr to deliver ortho supplies to a clinic. On the two hour drive we passed bombed out buildings, houses, bridges. In the town we saw the school, apartment buildings, houses and hospital that were hit by missiles.The hospital that is still standing has many complex patients, injured by war.We met [...]