MGH Team Helps With Tsunami Relief Effort

After spending a month volunteering with the Department of Defense and Project Hope in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, 42 employees from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)—a Harvard Medical School-affiliated teaching hospital—returned this past weekend from the tsunami-stricken region.

The team from MGH—including 25 nurses, 14 physicians, two social workers, and a dietician—worked alongside personnel from the Navy and 22 other participating health centers to provide medical and humanitarian assistance from a base of operations aboard a 1,000-bed hospital ship, the U.S.N.S. Mercy.

Laurence J. Ronan, a general practitioner who participated in and helped organize the trip, said that when he first arrived he was struck by the devastation to the country’s infrastructure that the tsunami had caused.

“In one region, it’s as if you had a cake and someone took a knife and wiped off half the cake’s icing,” he said.

While some relief efforts have focused on repairing the vast physical damage, the team from MGH spent most of their time working with survivors.

According to another participant, Robert L. Sheridan, the MGH physicians performed approximately 120 surgical operations for ailments such as soft tissue injuries and fractures. The doctors and nurses also provided care for hernias, tumors, trauma, and chest infections from untreated pneumonia—pervasive medical problems that existed before the tsunami struck.

“I really got attached to some of the patients. I was surprised how much I liked them,” Sheridan said. “I thought they would be so different, but it was very easy to get close to them.”

Many other volunteers said they were impressed by the resilience and kindheartedness of the Indonesian people.

Ronan told the story of Aqbal, a child who was found floating on a board in the middle of the ocean by fishermen two days after the tsunami. He had swallowed mud, was suffering from pneumonia, and had lost both parents.

But Ronan said, “Last I saw he was getting better on our hospital ship,” which he cites as an example of the child’s “courage, fortitude and drive to survive.”

Another participant, Sidney S. Cash, said he was touched by the “unbelievable character” of the director of the Banda Aceh hospital, who lost his entire family in the tidal wave, but returned to the devastated hospital the next day in hopes of helping his patients.

Cash said he was glad to have the opportunity to aid patients in Indonesia.

“We were really lucky to be able to go...but you have to remember there were a lot of people back here who made it possible for us to go,” he said, adding that MGH was very supportive of its volunteers, offering to pay half their salaries for the time they were gone.

“It was so important that we were there, because it shows that the American public is interested in that part of the world, to help get it back on its feet,” Ronan said of the trip.

He said that he hoped people would continue to lend support to the relief effort.

“We should be prepared to help in the long haul and not just in the immediate aftermath,” Ronan said.