Team Rubicon’s advance medical team has arrived in Caracas to begin the process of standing up a Venezuela earthquake medical response. On Wednesday, the team began meeting with the Ministry of Health and the Pan American Health Organization, or PAHO, to identify how the disaster relief nonprofit can support the country rocked by back-to-back 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude earthquakes on June 24. As of July 1, the death toll from the earthquakes stood at 2,295 people, with more than 11,200 people injured according to Jorge Rodríguez, Venezuela’s National Assembly president. Humanitarian groups expect the numbers to be far higher.
The Team Rubicon volunteers—or Greyshirts—are there hoping to pave the way for Team Rubicon’s Emergency Medical Team by conducting needs assessment and coordination with the local and humanitarian communities. Team Rubicon’s EMT team comprises doctors, nurses, paramedics, and highly-trained support staff, all with training and/or experience in emergency and trauma care, maternal and pediatric health, primary care, and endemic diseases.
“Our emergency medical team is prepared to support primary trauma stabilization and transfer, but also to care for exacerbations of noncommunicable disease, maternal and pediatric health concerns, psychological first aid and referrals for mental health crises, as well as to help identify, diagnose, and treat or transfer those with emergent communicable diseases, such as measles, yellow, fever, and malaria,” said Team Rubicon’s Medical Director, Dr. Erica Nelson.
Dozens of Team Rubicon’s volunteer medical cadre are on standby and prepared to deploy on the Venezuela earthquake medical response once an official offer of assistance has been approved by the Ministry of Health. If they are deployed, the medical volunteers could be operationalized as WHO-coordinated medical teams, providing medical care directly to patients and serving at mobile clinics, supporting local healthcare systems, and relieving Venezuelan health care providers who have been treating earthquake survivors for the last week.
While immediate care for those critically injured by the earthquakes is essential now, Dr. Nelson and Team Rubicon believe there will be extended health care needs into the future.
“As with any earthquake response, there are going to be a significant number of traumas,” said Dr. Nelson. “But caring for those affected by these massive earthquakes isn’t going to end when every broken leg is set and every wound is stitched up. Given the significant degree of population displacement, trauma, and the disruption of primary healthcare, medical care volunteers will be needed now and in the future to support continued and longitudinal care for post-trauma rehabilitation, mental health, and noncommunicable diseases, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, epilepsy, maternal health, and more.”
