FP Report -- December 1998 Physicians With Heart helps Russian hospitals
Former AAFP Director Ron Christensen, M.D., of Anchorage, Alaska, helps unload pharmaceuticals at Municipal Hospital No. 3 in Akademgorodok.
Photos and story by Leigh Anne Bathke
Two physicians-in-training were among more than 200 attendees at a medical symposium on family practice at Novosibirsk Medical University.
The Physicians With Heart airlift provided education and supplies to hospitals in Novosibirsk and Akademgorodok, Russia.
For J.V. Morsch, it all came down to a hug.
While he was visiting Novosibirsk, Russia, as a delegation member with the Physicians With Heart airlift, a local government official approached Morsch and asked to hug him.
"Of course I said all right," Morsch said. "Then he told me he wanted to thank me and my country for all of our help." The man told Morsch that 50 years ago, American soldiers saved his life after World War II. "'Now is my chance to thank you, not only for the assistance your soldiers gave me, but for the help you're bringing now,' he told me," Morsch said with tears in his eyes. "It's encounters like these that make these trips so special."
Morsch was part of a 35-member delegation, including 15 family physicians, to take medical supplies and equipment to hospitals in Novosibirsk and Akademgorodok, Russia, Oct. 3-13. The shipment to Russia was worth more than $1 million wholesale. This was the largest shipment of medical supplies and pharmaceuticals ever sent to the Siberian region of Russia.
The medical supplies, which included stethoscopes, otoscopes and crutches, and the pharmaceuticals, which included antibiotics, pain medications and vitamins, are desperately needed in a country on the brink of economic collapse.
Morsch is the father of Gary Morsch, M.D., executive director of the humanitarian organization Heart to Heart International. This group, the Academy and the AAFP Foundation were collaborating in their sixth annual airlift to a former Soviet republic.
Physicians With Heart delivered products to four hospitals in Novosibirsk and three hospitals in Akademgorodok. The hospitals were chosen because of the large number of patients they serve. The delegation split into seven teams, with several family physicians on each team, to ensure the medical aid reached each hospital and was securely stored.
"Although the supplies have been placed in secure areas inside the hospitals, more signatures are required before the products can be released for patient use," said Daniel Ostergaard, M.D., AAFP vice president for education and scientific affairs. "This is part of the consternation of dealing with the Russian bureaucracy."
Heart to Heart officials are working with Novosibirsk and U.S. State Department officials to assure patient access to the products soon.
Delegation members participated in a day-long medical symposium at Novosibirsk Medical University. More than 200 physicians and physicians-in-training attended the symposium, which included several panel discussions by family physicians.
The visit to Siberia was the first phase of the 1998 airlift. An additional $4 million in medical supplies and equipment will be sent to Uzbekistan this month.
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department. Copyright © 1998 by American Academy of Family Physicians.
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