In the past, many healthcare heroes have served with medical missions and spent weeks, months or years working on the ground in medically underserved areas. We can count on many of those organizations and health professionals to respond now, and we deeply appreciate their dedication and courage.

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Unfortunately, going to where the crisis is located is not a viable option for most of us, for a variety of reasons. Therefore, we’ve been able to stand on the sidelines and cheer for the heroes, but we haven’t been able to get involved.

 

Now there’s a way that you CAN get involved! Through telehealth technology, volunteer physicians and psychologists can offer valuable help while working through their home computers – it’s no longer necessary to incur the expense and risks of travel to distant locations.

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Where We Can Help

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At this point, the spread of coronavirus in Africa appears to be limited, but we know that it’s going to hit them soon, and when it does hit, it will be devastating. Health workers in Africa will need all the help they can get, not only with COVID-19, but with all of the other health problems that they routinely need to handle without adequate support.

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We intend to rapidly expand our panel of volunteers in a broad range of specialties to help people on the ground get through this pending disaster – and to continue our ongoing efforts to reduce health disparities and health inequities in underserved areas.

 

Our initial efforts will provide online support for the following:

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1. Primary care physicians working at hospitals in Tanzania and Uganda, who have great difficulty obtaining specialty consultations within their own countries
    

2. Nurses who provide care for students and staff at schools in Kenya, Uganda and Liberia, and who currently are working without adequate support by physicians
    

3. Primary care physicians and Nurse Practitioners who volunteer with free medical clinics in California, and who find it difficult to arrange specialty consultations for uninsured patients

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As we gain in experience, we plan to scale quickly to offer services in many other areas.

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How Can You Get Involved?

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Physicians and psychologists who are currently in active practice may find it difficult to add volunteering to their already increasing workloads, and they might need to limit their numbers of online consults each month.

 

Many others are retired and would like to get involved in reducing health disparities – and in the battle against COVID-19. In some of the hardest-hit locations in the U.S. and Europe, retirees are being asked to return to the workforce.

 

However, many of us have elevated risk due to age or existing medical conditions and should not be seeing patients in person, much less going on medical missions to other countries.

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Telehealth offers an opportunity to help with no risk or expense to ourselves, but with enormous potential for preventing suffering and saving lives while working from our own homes.

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Whether you’re in primary care, in a medical or surgical specialty or in behavioral health, we invite you to join us in this adventure.