LONG BEACH, Calif., Sept. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Doctors and medical personnel from MemorialCare Medical Centers in Los Angeles and Orange Counties are flying out TONIGHT at 10 p.m. to assist Gulf Coast hurricane victims.
The MemorialCare team is preparing to fly from John Wayne Airport on a jet donated by MedAssets. They are headed to the 760-bed Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge, LA., one of several hospitals treating more than 3,000 patients who have been triaged to Baton Rouge.
The MemorialCare physicians may also be needed to help staff the 500-bed field hospital being set up by FEMA at the LSU basketball arena.
“A lot of the patients need dialysis, hydration and medicine for infectious disease,” says Kirk Wilson, president of Our Lady of the Lake, the largest private medical center in Louisiana. “We have a limited number of local volunteer physicians who are staffing the field hospital and they are exhausted and running out of gas.”
Wilson, who is a former hospital administrator from MemorialCare’s Long Beach Memorial Medical Center/Miller Children’s Hospital, has been in contact with MemorialCare executives and is keeping them updated on Gulf Coast conditions.
“As a community-based health system there are times when we need to reach out to other communities in need - even when they are thousands of miles away,” says MemorialCare President and CEO Barry Arbuckle, PhD. “This is one of those times.”
MemorialCare Medical Centers
CONTACT: Susan Solomon of MemorialCare, +1-562-480-4266 (cell)
