Update to work done by Direct Relief International on Janaury 7, 2005
1/7/2005
Today, the 12-pallet shipment destined for India described in yesterday's update left Direct Relief's warehouse. It will be transported today on Thai Airways commercial air cargo, paid for by designated tsunami relief funds. Also today, a 17-box shipment bound for Indonesia was delivered to physicians from SurfAid International who are departing for the island of Nias, Indonesia off the Sumatran coast. SurfAid physicians and medical teams are staging relief efforts from Nias. With the completion of these two shipments, Direct Relief has completed eleven shipments to Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and India. The total value of these eleven shipments is $4.763 million.
India: Direct Relief today received a request for emergency assistance from Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences located in the State of Kerala. Amrita is providing medical services throughout the tsunami-affected region of the Kerala, including on Vypeen island. Over 30,000 citizens of Kerala have been relocated from coastal areas. Four thousand persons were evacuated from Vypeen island due to fears that the waters around the island, which is densely populated, would rise.
Direct Relief also received additional requests from two of the four regional hospitals that are receiving the shipment that left today. The hospitals requested ambulances to transport critically ill or injured patients from coastal villages to their facilities for care not possible on site by medical teams deployed to the area.
Direct Relief today approved the expenditure of an additional $20,000 in cash to be wired Monday to the Good Samaritan Social Service Society in Tamil Nadu and the coalition of four Indian nongovernmental organizations that have joined together to provide emergency services in coastal areas of Tamil Nadu and Andra Pradesh.
The expenditure of these funds will be overseen by Mr. Seshadri Iyer, Direct Relief's representative in Chenai. The funds will be used to cover costs associated with receipt, transport, and distribution of Direct Relief-furnished medical aid and other locally procured items.
Indonesia: Direct Relief pharmacist Cathleen Grabowski began preparing the packing list for the medical needs list submitted by an International Medical Corps surgeon on-site in Banda Aceh. The request includes an extensive array of medicines, surgical and lab supplies, and orthopedic products and instruments for use in the field hospital in Aceh. Among the items requested were amputation knives and saws and anesthesia.
Myanmar: Direct Relief Vice President of Programs Chris Brady, travelling in Sri Lanka, received a communication from a former colleague at Populations Services International working in Myanmar that damage in the country was not extensive.
1/6/2005
Sri Lanka: Today Vice President of Programs Chris G. Brady and Program Officer Kelly Darnell departed for Sri Lanka. They will oversee the distribution of the FedEx-carried shipment of seven tons of medical material, which will arrive Saturday morning local time. Brady and Darnell also will plan near-term assistance efforts.
The FedEx plane also carries additional emergency medical supplies that were contributed by U.S.-based colleague organizations Heart-to-Heart and World Vision, both members of the Partnership for Quality Medical Donations.
Yesterday, Dr. Ananada Gunasekera, the director of Sri Lanka’s third largest teaching hospital in Kurunegala, met at Direct Relief’s warehouse with our medical and program staff. He will meet next week, along with senior health officials, with Chris Brady and Kelly Darnell. Dr. Gunasakera briefed the Direct Relief team on the pre-tsunami challenges to stock hospitals with drug supplies and on the public health systems processes.
India: Direct Relief warehouse staff today completed packing the next emergency shipment. It consists of 3.5 tons of materials on 12 pallets, with a wholesale value of $1.45 million. The materials are being sent to re-supply four regional hospitals in Tamil Nadu that have dispensed their staff, medicines, equipment, and supplies to the affected areas for immediate care.
The hospitals are:Ramakrishna Mission Hospital in Myiapre, Chennai; Meenskshi Mission Hospital in Madurai, Tamil Nadu; Hindu Mission Hospital in Tambaram, Chennai; and Sankara Arogya Medical Centre in Trauvarur district of Tamil Nadu.
Direct Relief’s practice is to provide materials that are specifically requested, and the broad range of specific medicines and supplies on this shipment reflect the level of detail involved to fulfill requests. To see the entire packing list of items, pallet by pallet, click here.
Materials included in the first shipment sent by Direct Relief to the Good Samaritan Social Service Society are being used now to care for patients displaced and injured or sick from the tsunami.
Indonesia: Warehouse staff also began packing another shipment for Indonesia to be hand-carried by physicians travelling to the region with SurfAid International. This shipment will contain 12 boxes of customized medicines and supplies that have been requested. SurfAid’s resident health teams in Indonesia are filing situation reports that you can read at www.surfaidinternational.org.
Also today, program officer Christienne Durbin received an extensive, detailed medical needs lists from Indonesia from the International Organization for Migration (www.iom.int). The list is approved by Indonesia for entry into the country, and we will begin working on fulfilling the list tomorrow. IOM was one of the few international organizations operating in every district of Banda Aceh before the earthquake and tsunami. Its office in Banda Aceh is serving as a hub serving UN and other agencies bringing in aid, including that carried by US Navy helicopters to the area.
Christienne is also coordinating with International Medical Corps (www.imcworldwide.org), which has an extensive Indonesia-based medical staff which is deploying to Banda Aceh. Direct Relief will work with IMC, which received funding to establish field hospitals, to equip their facilities.
Other Activities: Chief Medical Officer Bill Morton-Smith and Pharmacist Cathleen Grabowski have developed a projected-needs lists based on situation reports from on-the-ground partners and aggregated reports furnished by international organizations and the Center for Disease Control. This list will be used to request product donations from pharmaceutical companies or to purchase the items.
1/4/2005
As of midnight January 3, Direct Relief has received $3.1 million in designated cash contributions and pledges for the tsunami relief efforts. These contributions for the tsunami relief are being restricted in a separate bank account and will be used only to cover expenses directly related to activities in the affected areas.
Direct Relief also has received medical product donations designated for the relief effort with a wholesale value of $33.7 million.
With the shipment that departed today, Direct Relief has furnished more than twenty tons of specifically requested medicines, supplies, equipment through seven separate shipments to India, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia. The wholesale value of materials included in these shipments is $3,085,857. These materials were drawn from current inventory, not from the product that has been donated specifically for this emergency, which will be provided in upcoming shipments.
Cash Expenditures of tsunami-designated funds. Using tsunami-designated funds received over the past several days, Direct Relief has spent $83,000 in cash for emergency response efforts.
$20,000 has been spent to buy urgently needed nutritional items in India for displaced people in Tamil Nadu and Andra Pradesh. $40,000 has been spent to buy pharmaceutical items and medical supplies noted in yesterday’s report. An additional $23,100 has been spent on commercial air cargo for four emergency shipments carried on Thai Airways to India and Sri Lanka.
Due to FedEx’s inkind contribution of free trucking and airfreight, the seven-ton air shipment that FedEx picked up yesterday and is carrying did not require the expenditure of Direct Relief funds. Had FedEx not stepped forward generously, this flight would have cost an additional $25,000 for trucking and air freight.
These are unaudited figures, but we believe it is important to note what Direct Relief is doing with the funds that have been received for this relief effort.
Because of the unprecedented level of giving, Direct Relief is assessing the advisability of establishing a cap for designated tsunami-relief contributions. The governing principle for this assessment is whether Direct Relief can assure that such funds can be spent productively, efficiently, and with adequate controls to ensure that all expenditures directly benefit the people for whose benefit the donations were entrusted to us. We do not believe that this limit has been reached, given the level of destruction, the current and anticipated health needs in the region, and the chronic health challenges that existed in many areas before the tsunami.
The full extent of this tragedy is not yet known. The emergency response remains in the acute phase, where immediate action is required to ensure the survival and health of people whom the tsunami left very vulnerable. Direct Relief is responding to every urgent request within the scope of our organizational expertise, by providing medicines, supplies, and equipment to persons in whom we have the highest confidence will use these materials appropriately. If necessary, we will spend money – as occurred yesterday – to buy basic nutritional provisions for people being served by our partner health organizations in the affected areas.
Direct Relief’s role and support will continue throughout this acute phase and the subsequent stages of reconstruction and development. Our aim in this emergency, as in our day-to-day efforts throughout the world, is to ensure not only that patients receive needed care, but that the local health systems are strengthened and the local health professionals are better equipped to serve their fellow citizens. Neither Direct Relief nor any U.S.- based or international aid organization has more of a stake in the success of this effort than the residents of these affected areas.
Tomorrow, warehouse staff and volunteers will assemble an extensive shipment of emergency medical supplies for regional hospitals in tsunami-affected regions of India, which we anticipate departing this week.
