Monday, February 8, 2010

St Damians

I keep on forgetting to post up that I finally made it to St damians hospital last week. St damians is a free pediatric hospital run by a man named father Rick frechette. I became aware of them through my friend Danielle before I came down. I contacted them
from la and as they were one of the only hospitals left standing in pap they were overwhelmed. They told me they had 120 beds and over 900 patients when I called and that they were in need of everything.

I put out an email to the shalhevet community and within a day had several doctors nurses and pharmacists ready to donate supplies. With the help of Emma, one of our amazing seniors, we were able to send about 100 pounds down on a private jet that flew the night before I left. I then brought supplies with me as well but there were more supplies available that we had not been able to collect.
On my flight down here on virgin I was talking to the stewardess and mentioned the supplies and that I'd have to figure out a wAy to get them to Miami where they could be taken to pap. Within 5 minutes she had spoken with the captain who had radioed corporate and I received an email from virgin in San Francisco who, as of this email and after working with Emma, will be delivering everything we have next week. Very cool.

St damians is being used by everyone for obvious reasons and there are people everywhere. That said it's clean, a very nice facility, and relatively unhurt by the earthquake. I went at night and things were quiet so I just said hello to a few people and left. Still nice to see who we are helping though.

As an aside the us embassy which was built 6 months ago is down the street. It's massive takes up a city block and heAvily fortified. Untouched by the earthquake it's surrounded by rubble.

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