Heart to Heart International Patient Story
The HHI medical staff removed this patient’s stitches and staples from her head wound today at the Katy Clinic on Satuday, September 9th.
A simple process that was made more difficult by the fact that the patient did not have the financial resources to pay for care. Earlier in the week an HHI volunteer physician had treated the patient in Tomball, TX for an unrelated problem and provided her mobile # in case the patient had questions. When the patient could not find a clinic to remove her sutures/staples she called the HHI volunteer doc – who had already returned home to the east coast. Dr. J contacted the HHI team in Katy and arranged for the patient to be seen today. Although the clinic was scheduled to close for the afternoon, the HHI medical staff waited until the patient arrived and provided the needed care.
Clinic in a Can locations in Katy and Tomball, near Houston, Texas.
HHI has been on the ground with our Mobile Medical Unit and staff, even while the storm was still active since last Friday, August 25th. HHI will be providing staff support and patient overflow.
The staff and volunteers have done an amazing job under difficult conditions to serve those in need. We do so because it’s our mission, our purpose and this why we focus on preparedness. It was because of that preparedness that we’ve been able to immediately help hundreds of patients in crisis. We’ve moved our mobile medical unit from Corpus Christi to Victoria. We’ve had an outreach team travel to Seadrift, a small town on the coast that was hit hard and without service nor medical care.
Starting Labor Day we will be providing staffing support and a patient overflow facility – a Clinic in a Can in the towns of Katy and Tomball, near Houston. The medical system and the brave doctors and nurses in Texas are needing relief to help them keep up with increasing demand.
We continue to assess the situation and needs of the region and know this will not be a short-term response. We are committed to being here as long as our services are needed.
Hurricane Harvey is a major disaster and we will continue to move and respond as needed to serve as many people as we can.
Here’s how you can be a “Hero for Harvey”:
Sponsor hygiene kits: Go to the PowrServ or HHI facebook page to sign up for Pop-Up Hygiene kit builds or email info@powrserv.org to learn more about doing a group event anywhere in the US.
Build hygiene kits: For schools in the Kansas City area, you can send up to 40 students/teachers to our warehouse in Lenexa to assemble personal hygiene kits. For schools outside the KC area, Heart to Heart can bring the assembly line to you. You need to commit to building a minimum of 900 kits and the suggested donation for this activity is $9,000.
Share: Communicate on social media what you are doing through Heart to Heart to help people impacted by Hurricane Harvey.
We are not currently accepting donated items at this time.
Thank You Partners
Responding to Hurricane Harvey
Hurricane Harvey became the nation’s first Category 4 landfall in almost 12 years, hammering the Texas Gulf Coast with an extremely dangerous combination of torrential rainfall, storm-surge flooding and destructive winds this weekend.
Harvey is expected to stall for a few days, leading to dangerous flooding in Texas and Louisiana.
Heart to Heart International had a disaster response team and mobile medical unit deploy Friday, August 25th, from Kansas City to arrive in Texas ahead of the storm. HHI is working with local partners to identify areas of greatest need and provide medical support and aid distribution.
HHI’s Disaster Response Team first stop was Belton Texas Expo Center to drop off hygiene and health kits. The Expo and Bell County Sheriff’s Department have set up a response center to help those that evacuated from Hurricane Harvey and needed assistance. HHI’s timing was perfect because the county was about to go buy hygiene kits for their guests.
On Saturday, The DRT team was located in Corpus Christi, Texas. HHI and Convoy of Hope have teamed up to supply much-needed water, supplies, hygiene/health kits and minor medical care/Tetanus shots. Extra hygiene kits are needed in the hardest hit areas. If your company, church or school would like to assemble hygiene kits, please go to powrserv.org for more information.
Over 1,159 cars, with multiple families, showed up for the Hurricane Harvey relief in Victoria, Texas on Monday. Even larger groups are expected Tuesday and Wednesday. HHI has given lots of Tetanus shots and treated minor injuries. All of this is being done with no power and water in 85% of the town.
As of Wednesday, August 30th, 2,500 cars have gone through the Hurricane Harvey response site. Additional non-profit organizations are starting to show up and offer complementing services. The Mobile Medical Unit has had a crowd around it all day. Part of the town now has power, but we are still running on a generator. Donations are still the main need as we purchase fuel for the generator and need to replenish supplies on the medical unit. Thank you for your support!
Thank you to all of our supporters that continue to help keep HHI ready to respond quickly and efficiently. Special thanks to Sanofi Foundation for North America for their support to HHI to ensure that the MMU is “ready to deploy” during US crisis – like Harvey.