A disaster assistance response team will be offering clinical care for COVID-19 patients in Nassau.
Update (Oct. 19): Our team worked hard to quickly establish a 28-bed COVID-19 care center at Princess Margaret Hospital in the Bahamas. We received our first patients on Monday, Oct. 19. Read a more recent story on our work.
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Oct. 15: Samaritan’s Purse has just deployed our Emergency Field Hospital and a disaster assistance response team to Nassau, the Bahamas, at the request of the Bahamian prime minister.
Samaritan’s Purse staffers worked hard this weekend to prepare the Emergency Field Hospital.
Our DC-8 cargo jet left Thursday morning from Greensboro, North Carolina, carrying the 28-bed COVID care center, more than 14 tons of supplies, and a team of doctors, nurses, and other relief specialists. They will stand up the facility as part of Nassau’s Princess Margaret Hospital.
The care center will help expand the hospital’s capacity for patient treatment, which has been strained as the number of coronavirus cases on the islands has risen. Princess Margaret Hospital is currently full, and they’ve had to shut down medical transfers from other islands.
In cooperation with the Bahamas Ministry of Health, the team also will be providing infection prevention and control (IPC) training for national health care workers. In addition, we will be supporting the establishment of IPC programming in associated medical facilities. A number of health professionals in the country have fallen ill with the virus, exacerbating an already difficult situation.
“Hospital staff are overwhelmed and exhausted as the number of coronavirus patients in the Bahamas reaches an all-time high,” said Samaritan’s Purse President Franklin Graham. “Our teams respond to the hard places in Jesus’ Name; this is the right place to go to make a difference in the lives of hurting families.”
Since the global spread of the coronavirus, there have been more than 4,800 cases in the Bahamas to date, including 3,660 cases in New Providence (where Nassau is located), according to the Bahamas Ministry of Health. Over 2,000 cases on the islands as a whole are considered to be active. A reported 102 people in the Bahamas have died from COVID-19.
The plane was unloaded in Nassau, the Bahamas, on Oct. 15.
Samaritan’s Purse previously deployed an Emergency Field Hospital in the Bahamas after Hurricane Dorian, a Category 5 storm, devastated much of the nation last year. We also set up a country office there and continue to run a number of relief projects to assist with recovery.
Our current deployment also comes about six months after Samaritan’s Purse simultaneously operated COVID-focused field hospitals in Cremona, Italy, and in New York City, both of which were pandemic epicenters at that time. Our medical staff cared for more than 600 patients at the two nearly identical 68-bed respiratory care units, reminding these men and women that they were not alone or forgotten.
Pray for our team in the Bahamas as they respond in Jesus’ Name to this urgent need for medical assistance.
