Kids & Family
'Disaster Docs' Flying To Philippines To Help Typhoon Victims
Dr. Richard Paat, the nephew of Remy Paat Maceda of Morton Grove, has been on 53 medical missions, and his team can treat as many as 4,000 people in a week with equipment they bring themselves.
Written by Pam DeFiglio
Remy Paat Maceda of Morton Grove was working the phones Tuesday, fundraising among people in Chicago's northern suburbs to support her nephew, Dr. Richard Paat, who is flying to the Philippines at noon Thursday with a team of doctors to help treat Typhoon Haiyan victims.
The team, which includes two internists, one general surgeon, one pediatrician and an anesthesiologist from the Special Commission on Relief and Education (SCORE), a Filipino-American group from Toledo, Ohio, will fly to the Philippines to meet up with 11 doctors from the University of Santos Tomas, Philippines, and the combined group of 22 people will fly to Polo, a town on the island of Pinay, demolished by the typhoon.
"Everything was flattened except the church," said Paat. "We'll be the first team into the area, and there's no electricity."
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Like many other members of the SCORE team, though, Paat has disaster-zone experience. He's been going on medical missions since 1996, and says this will be his 53rd. He's helped out after Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Mitch in Honduras and disasters in Guatemala, Tanzania, Haiti and other places, according to the Toledo Blade, as well as four medical missions annually to the Philippines, where his father was born.
"We're a self-sufficient team. We bring everything we need," he said. "We'll be ready to do major and minor surgeries and treat people. The initial relief team will be there a week, and we can treat up to 4,000 patients in that time."
They're packing 33 50-pound duffel bags with medications, supplies, food, clean water filters, anti-parasite medicine, solar batteries and other necessities.
As for electricity, they bring a battery, and if they can find a working vehicle, they have a plug-in adapter. They also have a solar-powered battery.
"We're assuming they have nothing," Dr. Paat said. "We can work in any situation. We've worked in refugee camps and tents, or outdoors."
Other American volunteers may do similar missions, but Dr. Paat said SCORE, which is the philanthropic arm of the Filipino Association of Toledo, has a long record of partnering with doctors from the University of Santo Tomas.
"I can't say enough (good) about them," he said.
Back in Morton Grove, Remy Paat Maceda, herself a registered nurse, emphasized that every penny of donations goes to buy supplies for impoverished victims, because the doctors and others going with Dr. Paat's SCORE group pay for their own airfare, about $1,800 each.
"In other organizations, 10 to 20 percent goes to administrative management," she said.
You can see SCORE's evaluation by Guidestar, an organization which analyzes and verifies charities, here, and you can donate to SCORE here.
Maceda is proud Dr. Richard Paat is following in the footsteps of his father (her brother), Dr. Antonio Paat, 82, who helps SCORE administratively but no longer goes on medical missions.
She said her nephew has told her he feels God has given him the gift of healing and so he must use it to give the gift of service whenever he can.
"He's really phenomenal," she said.
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