GlobalMedic
GlobalMedic is a non-sectarian humanitarian-aid non-governmental organization based in Etobicoke, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and the operational arm of the David McAntony Gibson Foundation, a registered Canadian charity. It provides disaster relief to large scale catastrophes around the world and also carries out humanitarian capacity building programs in post-conflict nations. Time magazine recognized the work of GlobalMedic in its 2010 Time 100 issue. Rahul Singh, a Toronto paramedic, founded the David McAntony Gibson Foundation in 1998 in honour of a best friend who lost his life the same year.
GlobalMedic has a roster of over 1,000 volunteers from across Canada that includes many professional rescuers, police officers, firefighters and paramedics who donate their time to respond overseas. The volunteers compose the Rapid Response Teams that operate rescue units designed to save disaster victims, Water Purification Units designed to provide clean drinking water; and Emergency Medical Units that use inflatable field hospitals to provide emergency medical treatment.
Since 2004, GlobalMedic teams have deployed to over 60 humanitarian disasters around the world.
Origins and volunteer training
, a Toronto paramedic, created GlobalMedic in 1998 after seeing ineffective and wasteful relief efforts deployed in Nepal. Singh was touring the country when disastrous monsoon downpours triggered numerous mudslides, resulting in the destruction of several villages. Mr. Singh later noted in an interview that "There were inefficient relief efforts. I decided to do something to ensure efficient and immediate relief to disaster-struck people. After returning , I founded GlobalMedic".GlobalMedic later established annual Rapid Response training days near its Toronto headquarters and at several other locations across Canada. Recruiting is concentrated on, but not restricted to, members of paramedic services, police forces and others in professional rescue service communities. Rapid Response training days typically involve groups of trainees receiving several lectures and demonstrations, and typically involve "hands on" experience with the various inflatable hospital tents and water purification systems that are employed in the field. The large inflatable tent structures can be deployed in minutes after arriving in a disaster zone, allowing its medics to concentrate on providing immediate triage and emergency medical care.
By June 2011, some 120 people attended GlobalMedic's annual training day near its Toronto headquarters, with attendance growing to approximately 150 trainees in 2013. Several other recruiting and training sessions were also being held across Canada annually.
Deployments
GlobalMedic volunteers make up the Rapid Response Teams that operate a Rescue Unit designed to save disaster victims; a Water Purification Unit designed to provide clean drinking water; and an Emergency Medical Unit that uses inflatable field hospitals to restore medical infrastructure. Since 2004, GlobalMedic teams have deployed to over 60 humanitarian disasters around the world. Responses have included hurricanes in Grenada and Guatemala; earthquakes in Pakistan, Indonesia, Peru, Haiti and Japan; tsunamis in Sri Lanka, the Solomon Islands and Japan; typhoons in the Philippines; floods in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Mexico, Sudan, Somalia and India; and complex humanitarian emergencies in Gaza, Libya and Somalia.The deployment of its medical volunteers and its field hospitals and clinics are capable of treating hundreds of patients per day, The organization additionally identified that it can make an even greater post-disaster impact by preventing waterborne diseases from causing secondary disasters such as typhoid and dysentery epidemics. Such epidemics can occur after earthquakes that damage municipal or regional water treatment facilities and even, counter-intuitively, following severe hurricanes, typhoons or monsoons that flood large land areas with turbid, contaminated water. The organization and its volunteers work to help prevent secondary epidemics by having its WPUs both distribute decontamination tablets and by setting up portable water purification equipment which can render even completely contaminated water sources safe for humans. This is achieved by various methods, including filtration media, flocculation, chemical disinfection and the application of ultraviolet light, which breaks down the genetic code of almost all microorganisms.
After arriving in a crisis area, motorcycles are sometimes employed to transport and set up small suitcase-sized Noah Trekker water purification units, due to their ability to circumnavigate damaged roadways and other rough terrain in order to reach outlying regions in need of aid. In areas without electrical power, the small purification units will operate off of a motorcycle's 12 volt battery with its engine running, able to purify about 200 litres of water per hour.
Some of GlobalMedic's notable deployments include:
Typhoon Haiyan Philippines catastrophe, 2013
In the wake of Typhoon Haiyan which generated Category 5 winds that exceeded all previously recorded values, as well as a storm surge of more than 6 metres height that built up in 'mere minutes', large areas of the Philippines were heavily damaged. More than 5,000 dead, 1,600 people missing, and 23,000 injuries were initially reported in the first two weeks. Two months after the storm would see the confirmed death toll easily exceeding 6,000 with some 4 million people made homeless.GlobalMedic had its first four-man team airborne to the Philippines a day after the disaster, soon establishing a headquarters and three teams based in key areas of the disaster zone, operating out of Iloilo, Cebu, and the worst hit location, Tacloban. Within 10 days over 20 rescuers and disaster responders were providing medical assistance and, of equal importance, safe drinking water using a Rainfresh AquaResponse10 water purification system and over 10 separate Trekker purification units. A larger Nomad water unit was also shipped to Tacloban, capable of purifying 100 liters of water per minute. Over 1.4 million water purification tablets were also shipped to the region as well from the organization's Toronto headquarters. Using connections established on five previous humanitarian relief missions in the Philippines, GlobalMedic had its water purification equipment flown to Tacloban and Ormoc on a private C-130 Hercules a day after their arrival.
Teams also initiated a Quick Intervention Project to deliver bags of rice and boxes of food obtained from within the Philippines, alongside of a water tankering program using tank trucks to speed the delivery of safe water to surrounding communities. Employing two tank trunks, its volunteers attempted to deliver clean water to some 50 communities surrounding Tacloban, but could only service three to four of them a day due to the demand at each location.
GlobalMedic also ordered an additional inflatable field hospital from Dynamic Air Shelters of Grand Bank, Newfoundland and Labrador for immediate shipment to replace a damaged district hospital in Sara on Panay Island. The by hospital tent structure was funded in part by the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador which contributed $151,000 for the unit. Critical medications, emergency shelters, tents and other supplies and assistance for the Philippines were also being received from partner charities and agencies, including Health Partners International of Canada, the Compassionate Service Society and the Léger Foundation in Quebec.
Included among the volunteer responders was Pipito Biclar, a Filipino doctor born in the region and who was serving as a Toronto EMS paramedic after arriving in Canada. The reports emanating from the disaster zone prompted Rahul Singh to comment " situation on the ground is dire. We are in a race against time to stave off disease and keep people alive. If we fail to deliver, the suffering will be unimaginable."
The deployment became based at a temporary facility in Cebu, headed by Matt Capobianco, GlobalMedic's Manager of Emergency Programs. The Philippines response was joined by other GlobalMedic team members on assignment in India at the time the disaster occurred, and who then were quickly transferred to Tacloban. Among them was David Sakaki, a firefighter from Kamloops, British Columbia, who later returned to Canada and reported he was amazed that anyone had survived within the zone of destruction, which he had observed was spread out over great distances from the Filipino city. "The airport is gone. ... There's no power ... is just in ruins. There isn't a building that's untouched. It doesn't matter how far out of Tacloban one drives, the degree of destruction is the same." Sakaki believed the number of fatalities would greatly exceed a projected estimate of 6,000 deaths.
By the end of November 2013, GlobalMedic had treated some 1,200 patients in their field hospitals. By the second half of January 2014 its staff and assistants had distributed more than five million water purification pills and also purified over 2.4 million litres of contaminated water—making it both safe to drink and palatable—with their dozen Noah Trekkers, a Nomad purification unit, as well as some 3,000 smaller household purification units produced by volunteers in Toronto and Montreal that month. Its medical staff were treating patients at a rate of 'hundreds per day' in its clinics, while other volunteers were helping to rebuild damaged medical facilities so they could resume their own operations. Fresh teams of medics and volunteers were being rotated into the disaster zone ever few weeks.
Horn of Africa drought, 2011–2012
Between July 2011 and mid-2012, a severe drought affected the entire East Africa region, often referred to as the Horn of Africa drought. Said to be the worst in 60 years, theEast Africa drought caused a severe water and food crisis across Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya, threatening the lives and livelihoods of over nine million people.
GlobalMedic responded by freighting over 2.8 million Aquatab purification pills and PUR water cleansing sachets to Kenya and Somalia. The volunteer organization additionally produced over two thousand water filtration devices using large plastic food pails, converted by dozens of its volunteers in the borrowed warehouse space of a Mississauga, Ontario air freight company. The filtration kits were then matched with commercial Envirogard ceramic water filter cartridges.
The components for two thousand filtration units were then marshaled together and shipped by intermodal containers to the drought region, with each kit able to provide the clean water needs of a large family. A GlobalMedic WPU team travelled to Africa and worked with local aid agencies, including the Compassionate Service Society, ADRA Kenya, ADRA Somalia, MATE and FCC Kenya, to distribute its purification supplies and filtration kits. The materials distributed by GlobalMedic's WPU team resulted in the provision of tens of millions litres of safe drinking water to the affected populations in three countries. Ten Emergency Medical Kits for the treatment of some 6,000 patients were also supplied to aid internally displaced refugees in Benadir and Mogadishu in Somalia.