Jewish Healthcare International (JHI) Sends Healthcare Missions to Haiti and Ethiopia
ATLANTA, Feb. 8, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- This week, teams of Jewish Healthcare International (JHI) volunteer healthcare professionals arrived in Cap-Haitien, Haiti and Gondar, Ethiopia as part of JHI's overall mission to improve healthcare services in at-risk communities worldwide. "Having two missions occurring simultaneously in very different parts of the globe demonstrate that JHI is capable of taking on new and challenging assignments wherever they occur," commented Stephen Kutner, the founder and Director of JHI. "Our focus until recently has been on Eastern Europe, but we now are responding to the needs of various populations using different program models and concepts," Kutner continued.
In Haiti, JHI volunteers lecture and provide hands-on training at Justinian University Hospital in Cap-Haitien. This ongoing education is essential to the success of the hospital's Emergency Service and its new addition, the Critical Care and Trauma Center. The Critical Care and Trauma Center was recently built and supplied by MASHAV, the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs Agency for International Development Cooperation. Working with hospital administrators, the local medical professionals, MASHAV, The Haitian Ministry of Health, and local organizations such as Konbit Sante, JHI is in the process of developing a long-term plan for assisting and supporting the hospital's capabilities to provide emergency and trauma services to the people of Northern Haiti.
The team in Haiti is led by Leanna Cossman, an emergency room nurse from Champaign, Illinois and includes Brad Keating, an EMT and paramedic from Tampa, Florida, Rahul Khare, an emergency medicine doctor from Chicago, Illinois, and Patricia Lee, a certified nurse-midwife from Reinholds, Pennsylvania.
The group arrived in Cap-Haitien earlier this week and will stay for one week. JHI has plans to send training teams to Justinian University Hospital every two months, as a way to form ongoing partnerships with local healthcare professionals and the numerous organizations involved in the effort, and to make a lasting impact on the quality of and access to emergency and trauma care services in the area.
In Gondar, Ethiopia, JHI is initiating a long-term program to provide healthcare screenings for Ethiopian Olim (Immigrants to Israel), as well as ongoing education for fellow healthcare professionals at Gondar University Hospital.
The JHI program in Gondar has been developed in partnership with the Jewish Agency for Israel, and aims to screen Ethiopian Jews living in Gondar before they depart for Israel. These Olim will undergo JHI screenings for vision, hearing, as well as chronic medical conditions, so that appropriate services, such as the provision of glasses and hearing aids, can be prepared before their arrival in Israel.
In addition to the screening clinic, JHI will also pursue a long term educational effort to provide teaching and hands-on training at Gondar University Hospital.
Dr. Paul Hart, a family practice physician from Southborough, Massachusetts, and long-time JHI volunteer veteran, arrived in Gondar earlier this week, and will spend the next three weeks setting up a JHI screening clinic, as well as lecturing at Gondar University Hospital.
JHI is eager to complete these primary steps towards forming an ongoing relationship with Gondar University Hospital and looks forward to sending future JHI volunteer groups to Gondar every two to three months.
Contact:
Gene Rubel
404 307 8857
[email protected]
jewishhealthcareinternational.org
SOURCE Jewish Healthcare International
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