Today is busy and chaotic. One more day, and we are all feeling sad to be leaving. We have had an amazing team of doctors, nurses, a massage therapist and great support personnel and THE BEST VOLUNTEER TRANSLATORS, SECURITY, AND LOGISTIC TEAM of REFUGEES. THANK YOU ALL. We are having dinner tonight with the whole team [...]
DISTRIBUTION DAY was a massive joint effort led by MSF (Doctors Without Borders) and R4R Refugee4Refugee) to distribute winter blankets, tarps and water jugs. The event was well organized but chaotic. Some of our team worked that site and some worked the warehouse. I worked in the distribution center for new arrivals.R4R provides a sleeping bag, [...]
Today our new team member arrived Micheala a doctor from Slovakia. So thankful! More work to do -- coming up on our last 4 days.
Early morning. Having a cappuccino down by the port. Enjoying the peaceful reflections on the water and reflecting about the Hands on Global experience. There is magic in this ngo. The right people always show up, with skills and open hearts and willingness to work long and hard. Our Tibetan Nurse Practitioner left early and a [...]
This is home for this family. When a person or family arrive they are only given a bag with a toothbrush and soap. No tent, no blanket. There is such a shortage of space and tents that there needs to be at least 4 people in order for refuge4 refugees to give a tent. The tents [...]
Today was one of those days of frustration at the system. Having to tell an 18 year old there is no dentist to pull out his infected, painful molars. He will have to just live with the pain, likely for years. A 53 year old woman who has an extremely high blood sugar level of 344, [...]
It takes a village to make our clinic happen. Our team is global from Slovakia, Romania, USA, Palestine, Ghana, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Cameroon, Tibet. We have great cooperation, and working together to serve our fellow humans here gives us strength . There is great kindness here. We are inquisitive about each other’s culture and respectful [...]
We have a Nurse Practitioner from Canada joining our team. She is very skilled and has done refugee work before so she was a seamless fit. Dr. Dan saw some really sick kids today, pneumonia’s, asthma. He said these are kids he would not send home and yet they are sent back to a tent [...]
Our stellar rock star Nurse Practitioner, Leslie Gibbs, leaves today. She has the kindest bedside manner and is highly skilled medically. We are going to miss her BIG TIME. THANK YOU LESLIE!
We have figured out more efficient, less chaotic management. Sadly, the stories and situations, frustrations and lack of resource have become our “normal”. I hate this because we have no choice but to work within this parameter. And we accept it. I don’t want this to be the “normal”. We should never accept this . [...]
