Mass General sends 26 medical pros to help Puerto Rico hurricane victims
A 26-member team of Massachusetts General Hospital medical professionals deployed yesterday to Puerto Rico, where they’ll spend 16 days helping the thousands of people who have been living without health care since Hurricane Maria devastated the island in September.
The team, made up of 15 nurses, four nurse practitioners, five doctors, one physician assistant and one logistics/security staffer, flew out of Logan International Airport yesterday. They are responding to the Caribbean island after Puerto Rican officials requested help through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, a state-to-state disaster assistance system.
“We believe there are a number of folks with chronic health issues and elders who have been displaced from their homes,” Dr. Paul Biddinger, director of the hospital’s Center for Disaster Medicine told the Herald. “The team is made up of pediatric specialists, adult primary care specialists and emergency care professionals. We can fill a lot of different kinds of missions.”
Though many team members have experience responding to disasters — including aiding Haiti after a massive earthquake in 2010 — the professionals who flew out yesterday spent hours training for the unique issues they could face on the storm-battered island, Biddinger said.
“This is different from a mission when you go within a week after,” Biddinger said. “It’s been more than a month since the hurricane struck. It makes the needs of the patients and the system different.”
Part of the role the MGH team will play is helping transition control from federal officials to local authorities on the island.
“We want to help to continue to make sure ... people get the medical attention they need and deserve,” Biddinger said. “Everyone is eager to help. It is really extraordinary how many people volunteered immediately. I think people are very aware of the suffering and need. Everyone feels they wish they could do more because the need is so great.”