Puerto Ricans Seek To Rebuild A Shattered Health Care System After Hurricane Maria | HuffPost Impact - Action News
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Posted: 2018-08-13T09:46:48Z | Updated: 2018-08-13T17:16:04Z

For more than six months after the storms, Ingrid Morales settled down to sleep every night on a thin canvas cot, surrounded by water bottles, medications and other supplies soon to be on their way to the survivors of Hurricane Maria. Her 7-year-old daughter slept on a cot next to her, and her husband slept in an adjacent room also stacked with boxes of supplies.

The family wasnt sleeping at the makeshift clinic because they were displaced, like so many Puerto Ricans after hurricanes Irma and Maria battered the island. The family lives nearby, and while they lost some clothes, appliances and mattresses, the home itself was unscathed.

But Morales is responsible for handling the donations that Clnica Bantiox a health clinic set up in a preschool just six days after Hurricane Maria receives from organizations around the world. She stays there to ensure that everything, from the blood sugar meters to diapers, stays safe overnight.

At one point, more than 100 doctors, nurses and other volunteers slept alongside the Morales family at the clinic. By March 2018, it was just the Morales family. As a member of the administrative staff, Morales felt the responsibility was too important to abandon, which is why she spent so many nights there. But she also has a personal reason to stay.

I think that giving is healing, she said.

The clinic is just one component of Iniciativa Comunitaria, a nonprofit that is helping address health care needs after the storm. It also runs brigades that bring mobile clinics to communities around the island. The Puerto Rico-based organization has been around for over 25 years, sending groups of volunteers they call brigades to respond to crises in Haiti, Guatemala and elsewhere across the world.

Now, the volunteers homeland is in crisis. The water levels in Toa Baja, the low-lying suburb of San Juan where the clinic is located, reached nearly 20 feet during the storm, leaving some residents stranded on their roofs. In the aftermath, Iniciativa Comunitaria has helped more than 6,000 people between its clinic and its brigades.

The members of the brigade started their journey more than nine months ago. Its their longest mission ever.

Continual Healing

While Hurricane Maria no longer makes headlines every day on the United States mainland, Puerto Ricans are still recovering physically and emotionally from the islands most devastating storm in decades. Doctors and medical professionals are needed more than ever.

Even before the storm, Puerto Ricos financial crisis had driven doctors away from the island in search of jobs elsewhere. Between 2006 and 2016, 5,000 doctors emigrated away. Furthering the medical crisis, an estimated 10 doctors per day have left the island since the storm, according to local news outlet El Nuevo Da.

Everything was so disrupted that their income stopped, their offices were destroyed, said Dr. Wendy Matos, executive director of the University of Puerto Ricos faculty practice plan. Its like the rug was taken out from under their feet. People made decisions to survive.

Those who remain are picking up the pieces.