My daughter Claire is currently in Kurdistan with the international medical organization MedGlobal (See post from 4/4/2019, "On Her Way To Kurdistan") , |
Claire has been communicating with the family via Facebook, sending us brief updates and pictures almost daily, and she and I were able to have a chat this past Monday despite the 7-hour time difference. |
While waiting for a flight carrying another MedGlobal volunteer she and her escorts had a look around Erbil, stopping at a beautiful market,
The following day, Saturday, the MedGlobal team was invited to a meeting with the Kurdish Ministers of Health (Claire is seated at the far left end of the table and is wearing the pink-striped jacket),
When I asked Claire if she felt safe in the city she assured me that Dohuk is a very safe place, likely in no small part due to the armed soldiers and check points stationed all over the town.
The following day, Sunday, the MedGlobal team headed out to the refugee camps.
The Dohuk camps have been in existence for several years; at the camp Claire visited the refugees had shipping container houses and houses made of concrete blocks covered with tarps which, Claire said, are much better than tents.
The medical clinics are already staffed with Kurdish health care providers, and the MedGlobal group and their Kurdish hosts came to the consensus that, along with helping with patient care, it would also be beneficial to determine what MedGlobal could do for the health care providers who are already working at the camps.
It turns out that what the Kurdish medical staff needs most to better carry out their healing mission are more supplies, more money, and more training.
To that end, Claire, who has Intensive Care experience, offered to use her time there to train nurses.
"I like to support nurses," she explained.
Subsequently it was decided that she could be of the most use not in the refugee camps but in the city hospital. So she was sent back to the hospital in town to give the nurses some training, teaching different lessons every day, such as this lesson on resuscitation with the ICU nurses.
And, having been captain of the field hockey team, in high school,
...and the swim team, |