A Carle Illinois College of Medicine physician-innovator has joined forces with other medical students from Guam to help the island’s residents recover from the devastating effects of Typhoon Mawar. The storm hit Guam on May 24, with 140-mile-per-hour winds and flooding rains that destroyed homes, knocked out power and safe water supplies, and left the island’s only hospital with major damage. CI MED student Ariana Barreau and a team of medical students from Guam are raising support for those displaced by the storm while also increasing awareness of the island’s need for access to essential services, including adequate health care.
For Barreau, the cause is both personal and professional. For three generations, Guam has been ‘home’ to her mother’s side of the family. Barreau says living in the close-knit community during her formative years encouraged her interest in medicine and now inspires a passion to help her island neighbors. “My friends’ families have reported that their homes have been destroyed by the typhoon. While I am thankful that my family in Guam is safe, many Guamanians still suffer from lack of power and water, unreliable cell service, and have to line up for up to 4-5 hours to get car fuel. This is becoming a humanitarian crisis the longer it drags on,” Barreau said.
Working with other alumni of Guam’s Health Opportunities & Medical Exposure (H.O.M.E ) program, Barreau is promoting a GoFundMe campaign to support Guam’s recovery efforts. “After reaching out to dozens of residents and disaster relief volunteers on the island, we decided that this fundraiser is the best way for us to have the most impact and get the necessary help and supplies to Guam as efficiently as possible,” Barreau said. Monetary donations will supply displaced Guamanians with essentials such as water, dry/nonperishable foods, toiletries, candles, flashlights, batteries, rakes and shovels, and cleaning kits. “Some of my co-organizers are currently on the island physically volunteering with disaster relief efforts, which has allowed us to work closely with local partners to ensure that the funding will be used effectively.”
Even though Barreau is not on the ground in Guam, she hopes the crisis inspires new solutions to the health challenges facing Guamanians and other under-resourced areas. “As a physician-innovator, I believe in times of crisis, we have a chance to see how much need there is for innovation: For example, how can we create ways for those with long-term illnesses to maintain their medical care without power or water? How can we automate the distribution of medication refills such that staff shortages do not affect patient outcomes? Or create medications that can be shelf-stable without refrigeration?”
President Joe Biden issued a disaster declaration and dispatched aid to Guam, but Barreau says the island’s need is much greater than the Red Cross or Federal Emergency Management Agency officials anticipated. In addition to meeting some of the current shortfalls, Barreau aims to spark a conversation about the long-term resource deficit that Guam faces. “More than a week after the storm, only about half of the island is reported to have power,” Barreau said, noting that officials estimate the outages could persist for the next three or four weeks. “A core reason this fundraising campaign is so important to me and my co-organizers is that it is raising awareness about Guam’s needs,” Barreau said.
While no drives in Illinois are accepting direct donations of supplies at the moment, Barreau is exploring options to get the local community involved in gathering materials to aid Guam. “Through this fundraiser, we will be able to purchase supplies in California and load them directly onto the ships headed for Guam. I am also working with local nonprofits to determine if collecting supply donations from Urbana-Champaign would be possible,” Barreau said.
The medical students are working with three large relief organizations (American Red Cross: Typhoon Mawar; Micronesian Climate Change Alliance; and the Salvation Army Disaster Relief Fund) and local relief agencies currently delivering aid to the island. Anyone interested in taking part in the team’s fundraiser can learn more here.
Barreau’s co-organizers for the Guam Disaster Relief fundraising effort include Tiffie Keung (Michigan State University College of Medicine), Eric Pineda (Tulane University School of Medicine), Kristina Folta (University of Washington School of Medicine), Paul Tominez (University of California San Francisco), Jia Jia Zhang (Harvard Medical School), Kai Akimoto (University of Minnesota School of Medicine) and CJ Hattori (University of California San Diego).