Thursday, October 1, 2020
The need for medical supplies in Beirut since the August 4 explosion in the port is enormous – and ongoing. The response from the Lebanese diaspora, including many AUB alumni, has been extraordinary. In many hospitals and medical centers in the US and around the world, people are mobilizing to secure donations for hospitals in Beirut – people like Dr. Raif Geha (MD ’69), the James L. Gamble Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, and Dr. Ghaleb Daouk (MD ’84), Pediatric Nephrologist and Director of Extramural Programs at Boston Children’s Hospital. Geha and Daouk are quick to give each other credit for a recent shipment from Boston Children’s Hospital that arrived in Beirut on September 18. “My partner in crime – the one who actually spearheaded this effort – is Raif,” says Daouk. “It would not have happened were it not for my colleague, friend, and brother Ghaleb,” says Geha.
The Lebanon Relief Project provided logistical support for the shipment that weighed more than one ton. It included medical equipment such as monitors, pumps and oximeters, general medical supplies, and a wide range of medications, including antineoplastic chemotherapy medications destined primarily for the AUB Medical Center (AUBMC), Makassed General Hospital, and the Children’s Cancer Center of Lebanon (CCCL) at AUBMC. CCCL will be sharing the cancer medications with more than 20 children’s cancer clinics in Lebanon.
“This is a bittersweet effort in that I wish we did not have to organize, but the world being what it has come to, we can only advocate and support the good people of Lebanon, and the organizations that help keep the country on its feet,” explained Daouk.