➡ The chief medical officer of a Christian group, Heal Corp, discusses their efforts in providing disaster relief in North Carolina after a hurricane. They focus on delivering aid to rural areas that are often overlooked, setting up field hospitals, and providing medical supplies. The group is currently seeking funds to continue their work. They also warn of an upcoming storm in Florida, urging people to prepare and donate to their cause.
➡ The team is working with the government of North Carolina to provide healthcare to disaster-stricken areas, focusing on vulnerable groups like women and children. They’re using mobile medical units to bring healthcare to people’s doorsteps, especially in rural areas. They’re also preparing for future disasters and addressing psychological issues. The team is seeking sponsors to fund their operations and is dealing with unique challenges like environmental hazards and potential infectious diseases due to poor sanitation.

Thank you for joining me on this program. It is, as a doctor of God’s people, I’m truly honored to be on this episode. So we, I serve as chief medical officer for a Christian group called Heal Corp. Just a little brief introduction about ourselves. We’ve worked all over the world in disasters. We currently operate in Ukraine. I’ve done turkey disaster response in earthquakes. So this current situation that we’re seeing in North Carolina is not foreign to us. We’ve done many such missions in the past, and we’re honored to be in North Carolina serving. And you know, Pastor Dave, one of the things that we’re going to really talk to your listeners about, because this is really important, is first and foremost, the right things that the citizens who have been impacted by these hurricanes actually need.

I know that there’s been a lot of stuff that’s been coming in to these areas that simply just aren’t needed at this time. There will be a time for it. Somebody who lives in Florida who has, you know, grown up with category five, four, three hurricanes, and I’m actually in the path of the existing one getting ready to hit on the golf. And so I can assure your listeners that the information that, especially in the experience that Dr. Fernando is getting ready to tell you, he had the opportunity to fly and also a nose on the ground who needed the most.

HealCorp, who, of course, everyone, all your listeners know me as the founder of Women Fighting for America, but I’ve partnered with HealCorp, and this group is so important for the long-term gain, and that is to save lives. And Dr. Fernando is going to talk about that. We are in the process right now of setting up and trying to set up several field hospitals that are desperately needed. All of the hospitals in the area are overworked, overwhelmed, and full, and we’re also setting up in areas that are very difficult to get to still, and we are in desperate need of funds to make this happen because, as you can imagine, it takes a lot of money to have the type of medical equipment and the forwarding operating bases in the field hospitals that are desperately needed.

So I’m going to turn this over because I think it’s really important for Dr. Fernando to explain what he’s actually seen, what he’s encountered, and what our actual needs are. Well, thank you for that introduction, Christine. And yeah, so my journey started last week when we headed down to North Carolina. We saw numerous people suffering and not getting the medical assistance that we need. So it was a calling from God, and I just dropped everything and headed out to North Carolina to see how we can help these people. My first experience when I reached the ground is the communications were grossly inadequate and flawed in many ways, not to be critical of anyone, but this was a disaster that we haven’t seen before.

These are very unique circumstances that people were going through. We, through aerial support, we were able to visit various disaster sites of the places that are in need and aren’t in need. And I think it’s very important to let the listeners know where operations are going smoothly and where their operations are very much needed. Where HealCorp will fill in the gaps, where areas that have not been reached. We are focusing on an area called Spruce Pine, and this is an area that I chose because this was one of the worst hit areas. And you are hearing about Asheville, Burnsville, which were badly affected, but these are bigger towns, bigger cities.

And we chose not to use our resources on these areas because they’re very easily accessible through road, through plane, and they’re well staffed right now. But with HealCorp, what I decided to do is make sure we get to the most rural areas where people are absolutely suffering. They have absolutely nothing. Power and electricity, we doubt it will return anytime soon, ranging between 6 to 12 months. It’s going to take for these unfortunate people to get their power back. We did a lot of operations this week, which was very challenging. But thanks to a very innovative team led by Larry Miner and we were able to even use kayaks to get our medical supplies and other supplies over the river to these people.

We were relentless. I would not take no for an answer. There is no no in my dictionary with regards to humanitarian response. And I knew God was shining all over us. He guided me in all the right ways to make critical decisions. And we’re happy with our response. Now, as the humanitarian doctor, I will tell you that there is no satisfaction at the end of the day. Many people will say, well, you did the best you can, but it’s not possible to accept that. In my heart and in my head, there’s always what we could have done more and what can we do.

But with Hill Corp, we have a unique set of minds and teams coming from all different areas of expertise and sharing their expertise with us to come up with an exceptional team to make decisions. We work as a team. Even though I’m the chief medical officer, I consult with everyone on their expertise. And not to make unanimous decisions to for everyone to voice their opinion, to make the best decisions to favor people on the ground. Christy, anything before the break? You know, we’re going to give a list of and we’ll talk about what the needs are, what the greatest needs are, because again, there’s a lot of misinformation out there.

And, you know, people want to give them. Your accomplishments, introducing bars where we harness the world’s most powerful organic foods to create super fuel. What is super fuel? It’s something brand new. This is a bar for everyone, every age, every gender, every goal. Welcome to a new era in performance enhancing nutrition. This is super fuel. This is eBars, because you are a masterpiece. Thank you so much for watching. And we’re back with Christy and the doctor. Dr. Kirk, back to you guys have given us an update on the supplies needed for North Carolina and then what’s going to happen to Florida as well.

Yeah, thank you so much for having us back. And I think it’s really important for your listeners to understand Florida’s bracing right now for an unprecedented storm. Whether it hits as a cap four, three or five, the water surge is what’s going to be the most deadly water is what, you know, we that kills right and causes a whole lot of destruction as the wind. One of the things here in Florida, for example, that we’re really really concerned about is the fact that Florida has been saturated for the last several months. It hasn’t just because of several hurricanes that have hit us.

We’ve had a lot of unprecedented rainy season water and our ground is just inundated right now, our ponds are up. And so that’s going to complicate things and as the water and the surge comes it’s going to push major inland up the up the rivers and the stream and we’re going to see unprecedented flooding. Probably 15, 20 miles inland where we’re not used to seeing it so heal Corp. Again, we’re bracing for what’s happening, being proactive right now. And so we’re asking everybody out there to go to heal Corp heal dash Corp.org and please give and we’d love to partner, Dave with yourself.

I know you guys are taking a lot of donations and things like that so we’d love to partner with you and be able to get that critical needed supplies to those in need 96 hours is really the key window that we have for survivability. I’m going to have Dr. Fernando talk about that in just a second but you know unfortunately in North Carolina, my daddy’s from Kentucky. And we have haulers and I have family who live up in haulers and what happened in North Carolina, the reason why it was so unprecedented is because you have all of the water that’s not just dropping.

Then you have the mud and then you have the tree and the debris and all of this came down off the mountains and it literally wiped out towns, North Carolina and these particular areas. This isn’t going to be a 12 month operation we’re talking years and years to rebuild lives, and I’m going to. What we’re hearing also is it’s going to be upwards of 12 months where we’re still finding unfortunate. You know loved ones who didn’t who didn’t survive. And so I’m going to turn it over to Dr Fernando because I he flew around I know he helped and triage some people on the ground.

I want him to give your listeners what he was actually physically seeing in these hardest hit remote rural areas. Yeah, thank you Christine and yeah you summarized a lot of the disaster medicine approach there with, you know, a month slides and why this became such a such a terrible disaster. So also I want to mention to our viewers and listeners that, you know, we, we have been in touch with a senator of North Carolina Senator, but, and they’re in complete approval. We talk regularly, we make sure we’re all on the same page. So it is completely approved by the government of North Carolina and that’s the best way to do we, we see numerous private actors who come on the ground with, you know, unfortunately in the worst of situations like this.

There are unfortunately there are groups that thrive in this like for example, I saw a lot of homes that were looted generators were stolen. And we see a lot of people who pose and what we call disaster tourists. They come there. They take photographs with the place and they they stage thing that we’re doing all the health and take money from organizations who are really doing assessment and treating people on the ground. So this is something to be concerned about and it is definitely an honor to work with the senator of North Carolina that is critical to us, all our approaches are done with his approval.

So that’s the best way I operate. I don’t operate in any other way that some of the consequences, I foresee just like Christine, I echo her opinion that this is going to be a long operation. The disaster phase has many, many different phases in the disaster cycle. One is the acute response, then is the recovery which we’re in right now, followed by preparedness and mitigation. That is something we’ll be advising about how to prepare for future events and so we make sure this doesn’t happen. We use the tool called hazard vulnerability assessment and we as heal corps since we have numerous disaster medicine specialists, including myself, we will be able to make recommendations to prevent such episodes in the future as well.

One we’re focusing on right now is the winterization process. With winter coming up I’m deeply concerned about people in the rural areas like I mentioned Spruce Pine that will not be able to access health care. My concept, what I plan to do with our team is bring the health care to your doorstep. So people who are having limited resources, they can’t get aside, get out of the area, we will bring health care to you. We are moving forward with purchasing mobile medical units, which will bring health care to your foot doorsteps. Internal medicine doctors, pediatricians, actually I have to be very honest with you.

The response from the health care team, to me, to heal corps has been enormous. Numerous physicians and nurses have applied to help volunteer their time with heal corps to help these people. It’s unfortunate that sometimes I have to turn them away but we have been overwhelmed with a number of health care professionals who are willing to support our cause. The other thing we should be concerned about is we very frequently things like women’s health and maternity health are frequently ignored. We know very well through literature that women and children are often ignored in health care disasters.

My focus is always on women and children. We run various operations in Brazil, we help Zika virus mothers and babies, and we’re all over the world we champion women’s causes, and we will be doing the same approach over here. We will have internal medicine doctors, surgeons on call as necessary, gynecologists, and pediatricians. One thing that’s also very is often forgotten is the psychological problem as well. Frequently, people don’t address this and in the acute stage if it’s not addressed appropriately, this will lead to situations like PTSD and things like that. So we are on the ground, we’ve spoken to numerous psychologists as well, and they will be talking to people.

Once again, my concept is bringing health care to your doorstep in this situation. Many people don’t want to leave their homes, understandably. There’s a lot of vandalism, a lot of theft, but we will bring health care to you. This is a very unique situation that I’ve created with the assistance of my team, and that’s what we’re here for, to help God’s people. What’s the main treatments that your team is seeing? Because I’ve heard some reports that kind of surprise me that it’s not the treatments that you would normally think of. Yes, let’s start with the things, the situation of the storm itself, the hurricane itself.

With physical debris from all these houses that are flying around, they lead to environmental challenges. People are breathing in this debris. This debris is hitting the body and causing injuries, thereby the bacteria that live on the skin, they actually get into these wounds and cause life-threatening infections. These are some of the things that we see. With the dust, of course, we’re concerned that this can exacerbate people with pre-existing respiratory conditions like COPD or asthma. This exacerbates the situation. Interestingly, with regards to the environment, we’re seeing, with this whole hurricane, we’re seeing proliferation of bees, believe it or not, and we’re seeing more and more people with bee stings, so we’re looking for epinephrine pens as well.

Every disaster is different. There is no cookbook approach. Unfortunately, many people think there’s one solution for everything, but I’ll tell you with experience that every disaster should be treated differently. The other thing I worry about is infectious diseases. Since we’re seeing such poor sanitation over there, it’s a matter of time. My prediction is because what we have is we call it incubation period. When the bacteria infects you, it usually takes about 7 to 10 days to clinically manifest in the patient. With that having been said, we are going to start to see respiratory infections, excuse me, diarrheal infections and gastrointestinal infections pretty soon.

What makes this unique, Kristy? What makes this North Carolina unique? Is it because of where it was hit and the mountains and the flooding that makes it so difficult? I think it was the perfect storm of the system that came in and hit and the unpreparedness, and they couldn’t have been prepared, right? Nobody saw this coming and how it was going to react, right? You’ve got such high elevation in there, and it’s tough terrain with very tall trees. It makes rescue. It makes the efforts very difficult. And so again, like Dr. Fernando said, one of the unique things about Hillcorp is we’re able to come in and now be more proactive, right? We have to be proactive instead of reactive.

And so now that we’ve seen what can happen, we can formulate the plan so this doesn’t happen again and come alongside and partner with them. One thing that is really important in the last minute and a half that we have on your show is if you can sponsor the field tent. In Florida right now, too, we are in dire need of a boat. It’s an airboat that’s specially designed for disaster reliefs after the storm. We are in desperate need of sponsors to help come alongside of us to fund these operations. We will put your company’s logo.

We don’t care what we name our tents, our field operations, our medical tents, our equipment, the medical mobile units. We are in desperate need of funding medical mobile units, like Dr. Fernando said, to be able to take this to the individuals who are affected because they can’t get to us. We have to get to them. They are cut off from everything, and they are scared, and they are frightened, and they haven’t heard from people for weeks sometimes. And so we need to bring the care and the love straight to their door. So anything that you can do to donate money to donate supplies, go to hill-corp.org.

And Dave, what we can do is offline is set up communication with you and how we can possibly partner together because there’s power and unity, there’s power in the numbers, and we are a force multiplier for those in need when we act together. That’s exactly right. This is a time for us to get work together and save God’s God’s creation for such. His truth shall be your shield and buckler. You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor the destruction that lays waste at midday.

A thousand may fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not come near you. Only with your eyes shall you look and see the reward of the wicked. Because you have made the Lord who is my refuge, even the most high, your dwelling place. No evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near you, your dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. In their hands they shall bear you caught, lest you dash the forth against the stone. You shall tread upon the lion in the cobra, the young lion in the circle, who shall trample on the foot.

Because he has set his love upon me, therefore I will deliver him. I will set him on high, because he has known my name. He shall call upon me and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him and honor him. With long life, I will satisfy him and show him his salvation. I’m Lieutenant General Tom McInerney. [tr:trw].

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