#OnAssignment: The Largest Airlift of Medical Supplies to Puerto Rico through Direct Relief
By Rebekah Curtis-Heald, Commitments Manager at the Clinton Global Initiative
This post is part of a recurring series of perspectives on the impact of our work by staff and partners of the Clinton Foundation.
Hurricane Maria has left a trail of devastation through several Caribbean islands, including Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Since making landfall in Dominica on September 19, Hurricane Maria has been responsible for at least 93 deaths and catastrophic damage across the region. Cell service outages and fuel shortages have made distribution of aid difficult. The number of Puerto Ricans with power is actually decreasing from just after the storm, with only 18 percent of the island’s residents having power.
At the Clinton Foundation, I work as part of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) team which supports members of the CGI community — nonprofits, businesses, and others from civil society. In this role in the past two months, I’ve been working with a team here at the Foundation helping a wide range of organizations and individuals plug into hurricane relief efforts and organize work based on what’s needed on the ground.
One member of the CGI community that has been particularly active is Direct Relief, a nonprofit that works in more than 70 countries and all 50 states to provide help to those affected by poverty or emergencies, delivering lifesaving medical resources. At CGI, we have a long history of working with Direct Relief to coordinate response efforts — from recovery from the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, to a 2014 airlift of medical supplies for Ebola response in West Africa. Over the past few years I’ve worked personally with Direct Relief’s international emergency response team as we coordinated relief efforts after natural disasters, as well as their Haiti team as they’ve continued to support the recovery in the country, including in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew in 2016.
Today, I joined Direct Relief on the ground in Miami for the largest emergency airlift of medical aid for Puerto Rico since Hurricane Maria struck. Over 75 tons of medical aid, valued at over $21 million wholesale, were loaded onto an MD-11 chartered by Direct Relief. These supplies include extensive quantities of prescription medications for a range of acute conditions and chronic diseases like diabetes and hypertension. The medical supplies on the flight were donated by 44 healthcare companies, many of which have manufacturing plants in Puerto Rico.
The Clinton Foundation has supported Direct Relief’s work for years, including the recovery efforts after the 2010 Haiti earthquake and the response to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa in 2014. In the response to the Caribbean hurricanes this year, the Clinton Foundation has helped to coordinate and advise the team at Direct Relief.
I joined the Direct Relief team as they loaded the MD-11 that would take these medical supplies to San Juan and eventually distribute them across Puerto Rico.
Damon Taugher, the Director of U.S. Programs for Direct Relief, was on hand as the medical supplies were being loaded onto the plane. Damon stressed that all of the equipment had been specifically requested by health facilities across Puerto Rico. With this done on the front end, this eliminates all of the time usually spent in relief efforts sorting donations and identifying the destinations for aid.
The pallets of medical supplies are color coded depending on where the supplies are being directed — to hospitals, primary health centers, or the Puerto Rico Department of Health.
Each pack of supplies is labeled with the specific or hospital, facility, or organization where the supplies are being delivered in Puerto Rico. The supplies here are going to a number of different entities, including the Hospital HIMA San Pablo Fajardo, the Bayamon Health Center, and La Asociación de Salud Primaria de Puerto Rico (a network of primary care providers on the island).
This week, there were more reports of Puerto Rico’s drinking water spreading disease with about 25 percent of the island’s residents without clean water. Along with the medical supplies, the airlift also includes 24 pallets of clean drinking water.
By early afternoon on Friday, the pallets had begun to be loaded on the MD-11. Just before 3 PM Eastern time, the plane took off.
Just a few hours later, the plane landed in San Juan. Direct Relief workers immediately began the process of unloading and distributing the supplies to 14 hospitals, five ambulatory centers, 20 nonprofit community health centers that run 63 clinics across the islands, and other facilities identified by the Puerto Rico Department of Health.
Today’s airlift will help Americans in Puerto Rico have the medical care they need. Much more needs to be done to help across the Caribbean — from Puerto Rico to the U.S. Virgin Islands to Dominica. We are continuing our work to support these efforts, and are proud to work with Direct Relief and others who are making a remarkable difference on the ground in the Caribbean.
If you’re looking to support this hurricane relief effort, you can make a donation to Direct Relief here.
