We have watched the tragedy in Ukraine unfold with a continual stream of shocking live video footage. Many of us seeing the struggle on our screens have been left wondering how something like this could possibly happen during this day and age. It seems so foreign, so distant, yet—at the same time—so close. Our natural impulse is to ask, how can I help? Is there something that I, as an individual or a family or a business, can do to lend a helping hand?
We each answer this question in our own way. But what I share today is the story of how a small group of concerned Tennesseans responded to this question, rallying their connections among friends, businesses, nonprofits, government, and public entities. All these groups and people came together to act quickly, creatively piecing the puzzle of logistics together, to generously provide critical, life-saving medical equipment and supplies directly to the Ukrainian people suffering from daily atrocities.
Arrival of donated emergent medical supplies from across the state of Tennessee in Poland on … [+]
The first call for help came at midnight on March 2: a message from my friend, Kenney Isaacs, with whom I have traveled extensively over the past twenty-five years doing urgent international relief in response to natural and man-made disasters. Together, we traveled to sites within days of onset of multiple catastrophic events around the world, he with logistics and me, as a physician, with medical and surgical teams. We were in Sri Lanka immediately after the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, in New Orleans forty-eight hours after Katrina in 2005, in Haiti within thirty-six hours after the 2010 earthquake, and in Sudan on multiple occasions during the ongoing civil war in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Kenney, who oversees all international relief projects for Samaritan’s Purse, simply texted: “Senator, the situation here is grave. Millions of people are trapped and out of medicines and supplies. Fuel is running out in a week according to an assessment. We need to provide them with medical supplies. Russia will be in the west in a matter of weeks. Medical supplies from Europe are not arriving. Can you help us find these items in quantity?”
Already in Ukraine, Kenney was shuttling back and forth from Poland to assess the war and establish humanitarian distribution channels. He explained the dire situation and urgent need for medical supplies, made even more critical due to ongoing COVID-19 demands and assorted supply bottlenecks in Europe. The call for medical supplies and assistance came to us here in the United States, with Kenney sending me two separate, comprehensive lists of medical supplies specifically requested by the Ukrainian Minister of Health and the Polish government.
By chance two days later, a similar request came to fellow Nashvillian Brad Smith, a longtime friend and current CEO of Russell Street Ventures. Brad called late one night and shared that he had been contacted by Ivanka Trump with a list of specific medical supply requests she had received from Krzysztof Szczerski, the Polish Ambassador to the United Nations. Ivanka had met Brad when he was serving in DC as Deputy Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council helping coordinate COVID-related supplies globally. His list matched the one that Kenney had provided me from the Ukrainian Minister of Health, but Brad also had two other lists from a children’s hospital in Kyiv and the Polish Nephrology Association.
These lists depicted the alarming reality that Ukrainians were only just beginning to face, charging our communities and our state to step up and lend a hand. Brad took these lists and led everything that was to follow in Tennessee. He volunteered to coordinate contacting hospitals and healthcare systems across Tennessee, gathering donations which poured in.
The Tennessee National Guard loads pallets of supplies for transport to Poland and, ultimately, … [+]
When we started making the calls for supplies, we still weren’t quite sure how we would transport what we collected all the way to Ukraine. Requests for transportation went out as well. As Brad was working to coordinate transportation, I made calls requesting donations from HealthTrust/HCA, the Tennessee Hospital Association, Lifepoint Health, Ballad Health, and the Nashville Health Care Council. Each responded immediately and said yes, committing anywhere from a couple to as many as thirty pallets of supplies. Vanderbilt University Medical Center came on early – and their large commitment inspired others.
Volunteers worked through the night and on weekends assembling these supplies. Brad assigned others to help make calls to hospitals around the state including Blake Harris, Governor Bill Lee’s advisor, and Bill Haslam, the former Governor of Tennessee. Organizing and then executing the logistics, Brad worked out critical arrangements with the Governor’s office, the Tennessee National Guard, and the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA). TEMA picked up pallets of supplies from across the state while the Tennessee National Guard repacked and organized the supplies for transport at Berry Field, Nashville.
The Polish government, under the auspices of the First Lady of Poland Agata Kornhauser-Duda, who coordinated directly with Ivanka Trump, arranged for a Polish cargo plane to fly to Nashville, pack up the supplies, and take them to the eastern border of Poland. From there, the pallets were taken by truck to be distributed throughout Ukraine. The First Lady met the plane on landing in Poland to express her appreciation for the supplies from the Volunteer State. In an astonishingly brief period—just nineteen days from the time we received the first request until arrival at the receiving Ukrainian health facilities—eighty-five pallets of requested medical supplies made their way to the Ukrainian people, providing vital support where and when it was needed most. Supplies not taken on this initial cargo plane were flown by Samaritan’s Purse and similarly distributed in Poland and Ukraine on the following Thursday.
Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA) members who helped to consolidate donated supplies from … [+]
In total, we received over eighty-five pallets of donated medical supplies from thirteen organizations across Tennessee including Ballad Health (Tri-Cities), CHI Memorial Hospital (Chattanooga), Community Health Systems
The fiscal agent for accepting and efficiently distributing donated monies to support this remarkable Tennessee-Ukraine initiative was the well-established and deeply experienced non-profit Hope Through Healing Hands (HTHH). In 2004 we established this Nashville-based 501(c)(3) with an initial purpose to combat global HIV/AIDS and to support medical missions predominantly in Africa. Over time, it has distributed millions of dollars in humanitarian assistance and supported over two hundred medical personnel serving overseas. Because of its demonstrated effectiveness with partners on the ground, the organization expanded to address other humanitarian issues globally, specializing in providing early, coordinated aid at the onset of a crisis or natural disaster.
As the Ukraine initiative got underway, HTHH became the distribution channel to deliver aid rapidly and directly to people in need. In addition to the remarkable Tennessee-Ukrainian accumulation, airlift, and distribution of needed medical supplies detailed above, HTHH is also addressing the tragedy unfolding in Ukraine in three additional ways:
- Providing Essential Items to Displaced Ukrainians: HTHH has joined hands with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) to address the immediate needs of the more than eleven million Ukrainian people displaced from their homes, working through established partners in Poland and Ukraine to match the scale of needs. The United Nations says five million people have fled Ukraine, most into neighboring countries, marking the “fastest growing refugee crisis since World War II.”
- Supporting Emergency Field Hospitals: Further, HTHH has expanded its longstanding relationship with Samaritan’s Purse to respond with medical aid, supplies, and services to growing needs throughout Eastern Europe as fighting has intensified in Ukraine. Through Samaritan’s Purse, we are currently supporting a fifty-eight bed emergency field hospital and clinic in Lviv, Ukraine, an emergency outpatient clinic in the southern part of the country, and the continued airlift of medical supplies and pharmaceuticals to Ukrainian hospitals.
- Contributing Critical Financial Aid and Resources: HTHH is also working to provide direct financial and legal resources as well as other aid to Ukrainians who have been displaced. These contributions provide impactful and critically needed resources such as transportation, food, shelter, and legal fees to those who have been uprooted from their homes.
Pallet of specifically requested medical supplies ready for transport in Nashville, TN.
Tennessee is indeed the Volunteer State. From our government leaders to our hospitals, our non-profits, and our citizens, Tennesseans have rallied the cause and have led a remarkable, rapid response Ukrainian relief initiative. Throughout the past few weeks, Tennesseans responded to the call for help, doing so even during the earliest days of this war when medical supplies were in desperate need. This is a strong testament to the deep generosity of the people in our state. We creatively came together, each in our own way, to figure out what was needed, how to find it, and how to transport it across Tennessee to a central location and ultimately to the Ukrainian people over five thousand miles away — all within days. This was accomplished not by a single organization, nor by just government, but by individual citizens answering the call, trusting each other, and just wanting to make a difference.
None of this would have been possible without the tireless work of Brad Smith, hospital and health systems across the state, the Nashville Health Care Council, the Tennessee Hospital Association, and Samaritan’s Purse, all of whom have played crucial roles in expertly putting this together. Working with Hope Through Healing Hands, these individuals and organizations were able to coordinate, assemble, and transport critical medical supplies as well as financial, legal, and other resources to Ukraine.
Though we have certainly provided much needed assistance to people and a country in need, much remains to be done. A text from Kenney on the ground in Ukraine 5 days after our pallets arrived read: “The people in frontline areas of Ukraine have a critical need of medical supplies and clinics…. The work you’ve done in getting supplies and medicines is wonderful and I ask you to please continue. Until the war is over, Ukraine is going to need continuous humanitarian support.”
To find out how you, too, can make a difference, visit this link:
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/billfrist/2022/04/26/tennesseans-answer-the-call-volunteer-state-leads-rapid-response-efforts-for-ukrainian-requested-medical-supplies/