Click here for the photos of the disaster stricken area the doctors visited
I reported to you in my recent posting that our HGPI (Health and Global Policy Institute) and Impact Japan have been collaborating in a project with Project Hope since ‘3.11’.
Two teams joined us already and had been to the stricken zones of Sanriku several times. Dr. Shimabukuro returned to Japan again (but then went back to UCLA right after…) to join for the second visit. Several other Japanese doctors working in the U.S. are also participating in our Project Hope team. They all are a great help.
At the breakfast meeting of HGPI, consisting mainly of the member companies, I quickly reported how this project is going on. Then, Drs Frederic Gerber and Darrel Porr introduced the background of the Project Hope, followed by an explanation of some of their activities of this joint project.
I closed the meeting with a brief comment on the basic ideas on how to make plans for the health care in future.
The meeting was very well received by the participants. Given the situation of the disaster hit area, we think this project will continue for quite a long period of time and therefore are planning another breakfast meeting for larger audience, and ask the members of this Project to give briefing sessions in the future..
Drs Garber and Porr left Tokyo off to Iwate Prefecture immediately after our breakfast meeting.
Then, 4 days after their return to Tokyo, we had another De-briefing. This time, they met the governor of Iwate Prefecture, with an extensive discussions sessionwith the administration of Iwate Prefecture. Drs Hayashi (in Japanese), Kaku (in Japanese), and Yoshida also participated in this De-briefing. I became acquainted with these three doctors at the PCAT who joined our re-briefing session, and George who just arrived Tokyo from Project Hope to join us.
Dr. Gerber told me that he was leaving for South Africa the next day to participate in the inauguration of planning of Nelson Mandela Children Hospital (Project Hope is playing a leading role here, too).
Dr Hayashi is working in international settings (in Japanese) including MSF (in Japanese), Dr Kaku (in Japanese) is working in Haiti and other places, Dr Yoshida is currently working at Harvard School of Public Health and also is a mother to 4 children.
They are all working, thus thinking, globally, so their conversation resonated very well. Good Thing.