CAYMAN ISLANDS – Health City Cayman Islands is part of a Hurricane Irma relief effort being coordinated by the Cayman Islands Government to send supplies, medicines and medical staff to Anguilla, a fellow British Overseas Territory.
Dr. Chandy Abraham, CEO and Medical Director of the Caribbean tertiary care hospital, said that Health City and the Cayman Islands community are shocked and saddened at the level of devastation in the northeastern Caribbean.
“We want to send our support to our Caribbean family who have been impacted by Hurricane Irma,” said Dr. Abraham, who added that the Caymanian community is being mobilized to provide aid and relief to help the affected islands in their recovery efforts.
Dr. Abraham explained that medical Hurricane Irma relief efforts will center first on the critically ill and injured in Anguilla, where one person is known to have died as a result of Hurricane Irma. Housing and infrastructure have also been severely damaged there.
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Health City has sent three staff members and more than US$30,000 in medicines to the hurricane-ravaged island.
The Health City personnel have joined with staff from the Cayman Islands Health Services Authority, Hazard Management Cayman Islands and the Department of Environmental Health to form the relief mission.
A Cayman Airways flight loaded with Hurricane Irma relief supplies, medical and disaster management staff, medicines, water and non-perishable foods departed Grand Cayman for Anguilla on Tuesday, September 12 at 11 a.m.
Cayman Islands Premier Alden McLaughlin announced the government-led relief mission on Monday, September 11, the 13th anniversary of the landfall of Category 5 Hurricane Ivan in the Cayman Islands in 2004. The island of Grand Cayman was severely damaged by that storm.
Premier McLaughlin said: “Most of us know too well the devastation and despair that arises in the wake of a hurricane, especially those of us who lived through our own catastrophic storms of Ivan in 2004 and Paloma in 2008. We know well it was our neighbors from the region and our families and friends who ensured that we got much-needed supplies. It is time for us to pay it forward.”
The relief team from the Cayman Islands is scheduled to remain in Anguilla for two weeks.
The Cayman Islands Government has also provided post-Irma assistance to fellow British Overseas Territories, the British Virgin Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands in the form of police equipment and staff.
