Media coverage
Perfectly matched medical team heads to Sri Lanka
05:23 PM PST on Wednesday, January
5, 2005
By ERIC WILKINSON / KING 5 News
PUYALLUP, Wash. - A
perfectly matched medical team from Puyallup, Wash.,
is heading to help devastated areas of Sri Lanka.
Sri Lankan native, Dr. Senthil Nadaraja,
used to vacation in the very communities now washed
out to sea. He fears many friends may be lost as well.
“I really don't know who is
alive and who is dead because all I've got is a body
count,” he said. “The numbers are coming
out, but not the names.”
Nadaraja had to return to his homeland
to help, inspiring co-workers at Good Samaritan Hospital
to do the same.
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Dr. Senthil Nadaraja attends to a patient at the Good
Samaritan Hospital in Puyallup.
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Among
them is ER doc Larry Woodard, a veteran of the World
Trade center and Oklahoma City relief efforts. His
degree in tropical medicine is making him an invaluable
addition to this unique medical team.
“Our hope is to go as far out
as we can possibly get,” he said. “We
want to be a resource to people who don't have it.”
Also on board is registered nurse
David York, who just last year worked with a relief
effort in Micronesia on an island devastated by a
typhoon.
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He hopes to alleviate some of the heartache he knows
from the past.
“The outpouring of just care
and concern -- it will probably be overwhelming
-- just as the disaster part, losing loved ones,
is overwhelming,” he said. “Hopefully
this will be overwhelming on the other side of things.”
With a doctor fluent in the local
language, another an expert in tropical medicine
and a nurse experienced in island disaster relief
it would be hard to find another group of co-workers
better suited for the mission at hand. Some of them
have never even worked together until now.
Two other nurses are part of the
team. They will be working with the international
medical health organizations
SOURCE:
http://www.king5.com/localnews/stories/
NW_010505WABgoodsamaritansEL.7ece8565.html
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