‘It definitely pushes your skills’
Team Broken Earth extending reach into countries in need, founder tells Rotary Club of Corner Brook
Starting a medical team that would travel the world on a long-term basis was not the intention of Dr. Andrew Furey when he founded Team Broken Earth.
The St. John’s orthopedic surgeon, leader and founder of the volunteer task force of medical professionals that offers health care in areas of need, has been in Corner Brook this week talking about the organization and what it does.
In a presentation to the Rotary Club of Corner Brook, he said it was to be a one-off experience.
Started in response to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, one trip turned into another and then another, and one team expanded to become two, and then three; and now the registered charitable organization has teams based in seven provinces. The group relies primarily on donations to be able to do the work it does.
Furey said his motivation for keeping Team Broken Earth going is the patients.
“You see what they don’t have, and you see what care they would get if you weren’t there, which, in often cases, is none. And then you see what you can provide.”
The teams are multi-disciplinary and often treat patients outside of their chosen discipline.
“It definitely pushes your skills,” Furey said.
For instance, he’s worked in obstetrics while on missions, something he only touched on in medical school, and he’s spent time helping a general surgeon, something that wouldn’t normally happen in every day practice.
“It brings you back almost to medical school,” he said. “It feels like you recapture your passion for it.”
Another motivator for continuing is the sense of team that comes from it, Furey said.
He said it was an accident that part of the organization’s name became team in the beginning. Initially it was just an identifier for those going.
“But it’s truly a team,” he said.
He said there are people there that you might know from work, but you don’t really know them.
“And then you have this shared experience, where people are pushed professionally, emotionally, and the only way you can get though that is if you lean on each other.”
The expansion has meant a continuum of care for the people they serve as one team can pick up where another leaves off.
As the years have passed, Furey said, the teams are seeing a difference in the service they provide in Haiti. On the first trip, 80-90 per cent of patient visits were related to the earthquake and today 90 per cent are non-earthquake related.
Team Broken Earth has been working to break the education gap by teaching skills to local medical professionals in Haiti and by bringing some of them to Canada to learn.
The group has built a hospital in Port-au-prince and sent an ambulance there.
And Team Broken Earth has been extending its reach into other countries — Bangladesh, Guatemala and Nicaragua.
“As long as there’s volunteers, we’ll keep going where the need is.”
“And then you have this shared experience, where people are pushed professionally, emotionally, and the only way you can get though that is if you lean on each other.” Dr. Andrew Furey, founder Team Broken Earth