At the request of the Florida Department of Health, International Medical Corps is sending multiple teams of doctors and nurses to the state to respond to Hurricane Michael. Teams will arrive over the next 24 to 48 hours and report to the Florida Department of Health in Tallahassee to await deployment, once needs are known.
International Medical Corps volunteer doctors and nurses will help staff medical facilities and special-needs shelters affected by the storm, and potentially establish field-based medical treatment capacity for communities with heavy infrastructure damage.
Now a major hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 120mph, Hurricane Michael is expected to make landfall as a Category 3 storm Wednesday afternoon in the Florida Panhandle, with the impact being felt along the whole Gulf Coast.
Wind, flooding and power outages from hurricanes create a range of emergency medical needs, including lack of medications for chronic conditions, infection of open wounds, lack of access to clean water and the potential for transmission of waterborne diseases.
As a global first responder with almost 35 years of experience delivering emergency relief in difficult environments, International Medical Corps has the capacity to respond anywhere in the world—fast. We can have a team on the ground in less than 24 hours, and a fully functional field hospital set up in less than 72 hours. During a sudden-onset disaster, International Medical Corps provides emergency medical relief, including volunteer doctors and nurses, medical supplies, mobile medical clinics, and a modular, portable field hospital. We also work with local first responders to support and help restore local health systems, which can go offline or be significantly impaired after a natural disaster.
In 2017, International Medical Corps teams were in Florida and Puerto Rico following hurricanes Irma and Maria, providing medical supplies, clean water storage, generators and cash grants to primary healthcare networks, and deploying mobile medical teams to provide primary healthcare in hard-to-reach areas. Most recently, International Medical Corps deployed a mobile medical clinic to meet urgent needs in some of the hardest-hit areas of North Carolina following Hurricane Florence. In addition to ongoing emergency responses in Indonesia, the Philippines and the Democratic Republic of Congo, International Medical Corps runs relief programs in some 30 countries around the world.