Lucinda Haven, her daughter Clarena, and grandson Abel weathered Hurricane Dorian inside a public shelter and avoided the dangers of flying glass, rising tides, and having to walk through miles of waist-high water.
Once they returned home, however, Lucinda stepped out of the back of a truck with her family, fell, and fractured the bones in her lower left leg. It was terrible timing as Grand Bahama’s healthcare system is desperately struggling to recover after the storm.
In response to this need, Samaritan’s Purse has opened an Emergency Field Hospital in Freeport, at the request of the World Health Organization and the government of the Bahamas. Our team is now standing in the gap to take the pressure off local medical facilities. Lucinda was the first patient upon our opening Tuesday morning (Sept. 10).
Within the first hour, more than a dozen other patients entered the mobile hospital seeking medical help.
“Plenty of people lost their families. Plenty of people are still missing. It’s a tragedy felt all over the Bahamas. We lost everything, our homes, but we still have life,” Lucinda said while being treated at our hospital.
With this Tier 2 facility in place, our team of surgeons, physicians, nurses, pharmaceutical staff, and biotech engineers will be able to provide medical care for up to 100 outpatient cases per day. There is bed space available for as many as 40 inpatients. The hospital can provide up to 10 surgeries per day and is complete with an obstetrics ward with delivery room.
Additionally, Billy Graham Rapid Response Team chaplains are on hand to provide spiritual and emotional care to patients and their families.
After Hurricane Dorian ravaged the Bahamas—especially Grand Bahama and the Abacos—many medical facilities were inundated by floodwaters, forcing them to close.
The regional hospital in Freeport, Rand Memorial Hospital, is normally the busiest medical center in the area, but it’s been crippled by power outages and damaged equipment. Many patients have had to go untreated, and others are hospitalized in wards woefully under equipped to handle their conditions.
Kelly Suter, a clinical manager for Samaritan’s Purse, says our Emergency Field Hospital is expected to stay busy while Rand Memorial gets back up to speed over the coming months.
“All of the electric has to be ripped out and the whole thing [Rand Memorial] has to be rebuilt before they can use it again,” she said. “They have no operating room and little space for patient care.”
With excellent medical treatment as a platform, our teams are able to go deeper in their care for patients, praying with them and their loved ones and sharing the hope found only in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Shannon Wood, an intensive care nurse serving with Samaritan’s Purse, says this is why she went into medicine.
Our medical team is working to serve the people of the Bahamas in Jesus’ Name.
“I think this is such an amazing opportunity to be here in the Bahamas to reach people for Jesus by providing healthcare to them,” she said. “I just love helping people when they need it most, and you cannot pick a time when people need healthcare and Jesus more.”
Dr. Elliott Tenpenny, medical director for the Emergency Field Hospital, says we will provide emergency and trauma care but that we will also help meet every day medical needs in Jesus’ Name.
“There are no operational hospitals on these islands, and there are people suffering not just from injuries from the hurricane but from normal day-to-day things,” Dr. Tenpenny said. “There are women who are giving birth all the time and nowhere to go. This is four islands with no medical care. They’ve experienced a great deal of suffering during this hurricane and we’re here to relieve a little bit of that suffering and to reach people for Jesus Christ.”
Samaritan’s Purse teams also are working in the Bahamas’ hardest-hit areas to provide shelter materials, water filters, hygiene kits, and other relief supplies.
Please continue to pray for hurting residents of the Bahamas. Many people have lost homes and loved ones and are reeling from so much devastation. Please also pray for our medical teams that God would use them to heal hurting, sick, and injured people in Jesus’ Name.
Update (10:54 a.m., Sept. 11): Samaritan’s Purse treated more than 90 patients on the first full day of operations at our Emergency Field Hospital (Sept. 10). That’s near capacity! Please continue to pray for the people of the Bahamas and for our medical team members who are working long days caring for people in Jesus’ Name.
Samaritan’s Purse stands ready to respond at a moment’s notice whenever and wherever disaster strikes. We specialize in meeting critical needs for victims of conflict, disaster, famine, and epidemics throughout the world, often working through ministry partners on the ground. We provide food, water, shelter, medicine, and other assistance in the Name of Jesus Christ.
Samaritan’s Purse is a nondenominational evangelical Christian organization providing spiritual and physical aid to hurting people around the world. Since 1970, Samaritan’s Purse has helped meet needs of people who are victims of war, poverty, natural disasters, disease, and famine with the purpose of sharing God’s love through His Son, Jesus Christ. The organization serves the Church worldwide to promote the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. To learn more about Samaritan’s Purse and how you can help support their work click here.
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