For more than a month Heart to Heart International (HHI) has provided aid to the people of the Philippines in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda). First with an HHI Advance Team, and then with two dozen medical volunteers – doctors and nurses – who have come from across the USA, and have worked as small mobile medical teams.
They’ve been to numerous locations in the hardest struck areas of the central Philippines. Places that you’ve heard of on the news, and other places you haven’t. As you see on the map above, they’ve been focused on communities and villages on two islands – Leyte & Samar; around Ormoc City; and Tacloban, the city ravaged by the typhoon.
Our Advance Team and these volunteers have treated more than 2,000 patients since arriving in the Philippines.
Dan Neal, HHI’s Director of Global Logistics, just returned stateside from the disaster zone: “We’re seeing people who were injured in the storm or have who have developed injuries/illnesses because of the living conditions after the storm – particularly upper respiratory issues and asthma, puncture wounds and cuts from nails and sheet metal, and malaria from being exposed to mosquitos. We are also seeing many of the conditions being treated did not result from the storm. Various chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes were impacting people before the storm and now their normal access to health care has been disrupted because the clinic is destroyed or the health care staff are not available.”
To access previous posts about HHI’s Typhoon Relief Operations in the Philippines: click here, here and here.
And to read reports from our Advance Team click Part One, Part Two and Part Three.
