Founded by Mr. Gerald Scott Flint, in Kuwait City's IBN SINA hospital during the Gulf War of 1990 and 1991. Volunteer Medics Worldwide is a small N.G.O. that has been all over the globe doing humanitarian medical missions and providing care to thousands in their great time of need. The story and facts you are about to read are just a little of what we saw, felt and absorbed while on our missions to Sri Lanka and Thailand in the aftermath of mankind's worst recorded natural disaster. Upon our arrival in Thailand is was clear that the news media had not been able to prepare us for what we were about to see. Roads washed away, entired villages and resorts in the Khoa lak region had been reduced to rubble by the Tsunami on the 26th of December 2004. Hundreds of thousands injured and homeless and another 8,000 dead or missing in Thailand alone. While the government stuggled to fead , house and care for the medical needs of it's citizens, it was clear there was much for us to do. We began by getting the normal set of briefings by government authorities to let us know what was going on and how we could best help. We then went to work moving through refugee camps and fishing villages where many sick and injured people were trying to just get by. It was too late to suture many wounds but they could be cleaned , antibiotics applied and bandaged properly to allow for rapid healing. We treated eye injuries and disease on a frequent basis. Sand ,glass and other matter had found their way into eyes of many victims, leaving them even furher traumatized after the loss of their eye glasses to the 15 meter high waves that crushed much of everything aorund them around them. Children playing without shoes in refugee camps with broken glass and metal objects everywhere to be found , were one of our number one problems. We have been in many hard hit places prior to the Tsunami but nothing compares to this for our team. We recruited older children and paid them cash money ot help us clean up the sharp objects from the living and play areas of the camps. This really reduced the numbers lacerations that we saw in the clinic almost instantly! Common sense matters are often thrown aside when people are in sorrow and have lost hope for the future. Many people had to wait a good deal of time to get proper roof over their head and something warm in their stomachs. We also began helping with the rebuilding of fishing boats in the fishing village of Rawai on southern Phuket island. Many of these people were not high on the government's list of people to get emergency funds to get their lives back together. We saw hungry children and men who and given up hope on the money that the government had promised. Mnay of these men just sat and looked the sea or drank beer to take their minds away form it all. We bought food and soft drinks for a group of children before we examined them and you could see their faces come alive knowing something was happening in that village. We also made cash donations for food and materials to help get the boats back in the water. A few weeks later after we had returned from our mission in Sri Lanka , we noticed such a sweet change in things in Rawai. Many more boats back in the water and the places was hot with volunteer and tourist traffic. No, it was not all due to our efforts but we like to think that we started matters off by giving them and the children hope at probably the most difficult time of their lives. Sri lanka would present us with a much larger problem but very simular to that of Thailand. The Sri Lankan people while dealing with civil war for the past many years had now lost over 40,000 people and over 950,000 homeless. Countless others were missing and presumed dead on the island nation just miles off the coast of India. Total obliteration of schools , hospitals and entire communities was an all too common site as we made our way down the southern coast from Colombo, the nation's capital. In Galle , children were parentless and without proper food or medicine. Some camps had been created but many were poorly organized and little or no medical visits had been made to those areas. We patched head wounds , gave eye drops, wrapped and splinted injured limbs. We were acting as a mobile emergency room while resuppling others along the way who had been trying to provide basic care to thousands. Bodies of humans and animals the same were still to be found in ditches and fields far inland. An entire train with over 1,500 hundred passengers was thrown about by a giant wave of over 15 meters. All passengers lost thier lives aboard that train. We will never forget Alison Thompson, a civilan nurse from the Aussie, who went way beyond her duty to care for thousands at Piryia in an old library she had turned into a clinic. Alison , we love you lady! She made it all seem natural and managed well in a almost impossible setting. The heat was 105 f /40 plus C and the humidity was a killer to breath in. One has to hydrate very well and rest or the elements will take you over. We stocked Alison's medicine chest and took orders for more needs that we would send for later. One would think that will all the focus and attention on the Tsunami disaster and all the medical aide items that were sent from around the world, that we should not find hospitals like Hambantota trying to save used latex surgical gloves. They were doing just that and we saw racks of them drying with holes ready to be used in surgery and for other sterile purposes. One in eight that required IV fluid/Medicine therapy were getting it due to lack of supplies. When we talked to doctors and nurse there we were told that the Government had told them , there was nothing they could do for that hospital. Well, myself , Lucy , Paul and Tailak fihished our road trip and returned to Colombo for some answers as to where the tons of supplies had gone. We had spent days out in the field with our own supplies and had yet to see evidence of any real distribution of the supplies and materials that the people of the world had sent to Sri lanka for Tsunami relief! We got camera crews together and took our convoy to Colombo airport where we began to deal with authorities who clearly were setting on the millions of dollars of goods from food to medicine. We had to sneak our way around a bit but we indeed found what we were looking for. In the back of the airport well guarded by Sri lankan Military troops, we discovered so much of what we had seen people lacking out in the affected areas. Customs officers made every effort to come up with excuses as to why these items were drawing dust there rather than being sent out to where they were needed so badly. We spent a great deal of time there and made enough trouble for them that the big story got out to the public news. We released photos showing piles of antibiotics , IV fluids, food and nutritional items and clothing for those living in raggs down south. We later learned that the Sri lankan news papers reported and increase of relief materials distribution from 30% to 85% in just over 10 days. We were just glad to be of help in unlocking the flow of the goods to those in need. We feel that we really made a difference to those Victims in Thailand and Sri Lanka and are planning to return with a microscope and medical supplies for Hambantota ,Sri lanka. We will continue to support Tsunami relief efforts as much help will be needed in the months to come. Please feel free to visit our web site or email us regarding how you can help! We have a CD with mission photos available for a private donation. www.volunteermedics.homestead.com