Direct Relief has rushed $286,000 of medications and medical supplies to nonprofit community health centers and clinics caring for injured and displaced persons throughout the Midwest in response to last week’s deadly storms and tornados.
As the severe storms unfolded, Direct Relief alerted nonprofit clinic and health center members of the Direct Relief Network in Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, and Georgia, that its current inventory of over $60 million in medical supplies and pharmaceuticals was available and would be delivered immediately if needed. The robust inventory was due to contributions from healthcare companies who support Direct Relief’s humanitarian and emergency-response programs.
With logistics help from FedEx over the weekend, SEMO Health Network in New Madrid, Missouri received an emergency delivery this morning of specifically requested medical supplies such as wound dressings, antibiotics, and medications for diabetes.
These supplies will help care for more than 3,200 residents of neighboring Puxico and Oak Ridge, Missouri who have been displaced by the storms.
As clean-up crews, local residents, and utilities companies work to reestablish services, Direct Relief will continue to work with its broad clinic network throughout the region to ensure that needed medicines and supplies are in stock to care for affected residents.
Over $120,000 in medical supplies have already reached clinics. Today, additional and emergency medications and supplies valued over $166,000 – including much needed insulin for displaced persons with diabetes — were rush shipped to sites in Kansas, Missouri, and southern Illinois. Medical products donated by 25 healthcare companies have been included in the emergency deliveries.
Fred Bernstein, CEO of Community Health and Emergency Services, Inc., a nonprofit federally qualified health center in Cairo, Illinois that is assisting residents of Harrisburg Illinois affected by the storm wrote:
“People have started clean-up of course, after the funerals Saturday and Sunday. We received our first shipment from you – thank you, again – and we have organized the supplies and are beginning to distribute same. One or two days this week we intend to set up tables at the clean-up sites, and provide tetanus shots and whatever else we have by then!”