Physical Health Greece Project #23562

Assisting Refugees on the Move: Care-A-Van

by Circle of Health International

Project Report | May 17, 2016
Field Report 05/16/2016

By Nathan Scott-Johnston | In-Field Coordinator

New Ultrasound in use

Weekly Report from our In-Field Coordinator, Nathan Scott-Johnston.

"Pharmacy: This week we have had a Pharmacist create a system and do a provisional stock check to remove expired medication and the medications that are restricted in Greece. This system should help pave the way for digitization. I will continue to work with this pharmacist on policies and procedures.

Ultrasound: We have been able to deploy a portable ultrasound, through an extensive relationship built with a fellow medical actor in Northern Greece. This has proved a great success and was made possible with the help SAMS (Syrian-American Medical Society) providing a highly skilled obstetrician. Specialized staff permitting, we aim to run this service weekly or biweekly.

Dentists. The dentists have arrived and they are providing amazing care, seeing a vast amount of patients referred by ourselves and MSF. We are also taking referrals from other camps and utilizing their MSF transport .

We are working with actors to review procedures and in some cases create pathways. There is currently a shortfall in safeguarding measures by some actors, we are working on our policies for this and looking into sourcing training on this subject.

The vaccination campaign of children has started, this has meant an increase in workload with a high number of febrile pediatric patients. They have been given, MMR, PCV, DTP-IPV-Hib-HepB

Funding. Things are getting very difficult due to lack of funds, No real clarity or timeline has been provided on this despite several emails. There is a high feeling of concern amongst staff regarding the issue of maintaining long-term volunteers."

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May 6, 2016
Care-A-Van Update 05/05/2016

By Lucas Pastorfield-Li | Maternal and Child Health Emerg. Response Officer

Care-A-Van Women's clinic outside of EKO Camp

**The information provided below is mostly provided by Nathan Scott-Johnston, CARS in-field volunteer coordinator**

May 05, 2016 - Care-A-Van Acute Response Service (CARS) Programmatic Update

The CARS team continues to provide health care to refugees in Polykastro and Idomeni, Greece but is mainly stationed at the EKO camp between the two cities. The Care-A-Van vehicle has recently been serviced and is running smoothly!

Within the EKO, the camp's pharmacy has been organized and resupplied. Our partners at Team Katrinos are now searching for a pharmacist to oversee its operations. The goal of filling this position is to digitalize the pharmacy's inventory so that it can be shared electronically with donors and partners.

Sadly, 3 of Team Katrinos core staff members have left due to a lack of funding. On the other hand, Circle of Health International (COHI) has maternal health volunteers that will be sent to Greece to support the program once they clear the vetting process. We expect this will occur in mid-May.

The CARS team now has permanent housing accommodations! These spaces will be used for CARS staff and volunteers but have also been used to temporarily support especially vulnerable families before sending them to UNHCR for more thorough levels of protection.

The EKO camp currently is supporting around 2,000 refugees. There have been reported incidents of violence and aggression but not toward volunteers. Greek authorities have responded by constructing a fence along the central highway along with placing signage informing refugees to relocate to other camps within the interior. These camps may be the next stop for the CARS program.

COHI has secured a photographer/human rights attorney to work alongside the CARS team during the month of July. Her goal will be to document the team in addition to providing legal advice to all refugees encountered.

For any more information about the CARS program, email Lucas at lpastorfieldli@cohintl.org

Links:

COHI's home webpage

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