Setting Up the Relief Operation in the Philippines
The Philippines islands of Leyte and Samar are the areas where we are concentrating. Logistics are hard as the typhoon has destroyed most local infrastructure with debris covers the roads. The big issue for us is how to move meds, food and NFI emergency packs (non-food items). We don't want to be a burden on the struggling locals and so we have opted to be fully independent in the field. This means that we have between the Israeli German team pooled our resources and bought emergency tents for the mobile clinic, relief aid to distribute at each point and of course our own tents, sleeping bags, generator and food. Locals have run put of food and water and there is little gas. With no electricity we will also bring our own generator.
We are now in Cebu where we have worked out we can take our goods across the ferry into Orcom. 5 miles out of Orcom are areas hit people have not eaten for 3 days. The Doctors in the local government hospital have run out of supplies and even asked for simple goods like paracetamol.
We landed in Cebu and set up a command center to work logistics. From there the entire team was split to handle the different issues: relief, meds, logistics, the satelite clinic and of course coordination with local government.
I landed with the German team in Cebu near midnight and immediately went to the WHO (world health org) to register our team and what capacity we have. WHO then coordinates the international teams with the Ministry of Health. We spoke with the station chief and found out that on the western side of Leyte along the coast there was no assistance. Talking to the doctors in the hospitals we found out that they have run out of supplies and want us to set up a mobile satellite clinic to service about 10 municipalities along this area.
We agreed and started collecting the supplies from all over the city. Our German team were in charge of liaising with the doctors in the target area and then putting a list together for the drugs needed. They then proceeded to purchase hundreds of thousands of Pesos of drugs, packaged them and arranged for them to be delivered with the relief aid to the local church. The church has kindly allowed us to use their facilities to load the truck that will take us to the ferry.
In the meant time our advance team with IsraAid had moved into position in Orcom. They have arranged for us to start working in Ipil where we will work through a number of sectors of the population with hundreds of people per sector. The main thrust will be medical assistance, and the relief aid distribution.
Charmaine Hedding
Executive Director, Shai Fund