This pandemic, while challenging, demonstrates that people can still take action and contribute to the betterment of society. MedSupplyDrive, a volunteer organization founded in March 2020, is led by a coalition of Georgetown University medical students working to donate various medical supplies and PPE to numerous hospitals across the country.
Monette Veral '15, a Biochemistry and East Asian Languages & Literature double major, is a current Mid-Atlantic regional coordinator for MedSupplyDrive. She also works as the Communications Director for the Department of Family Medicine at Georgetown University, where she is a third-year medical student.
"As a coordinator for the Eastern Virginia region, I focus on reaching out to local medical schools down there, recruiting more volunteers, and coordinating PPE deliveries to local hospitals and clinics in the area," Veral explained. "Beyond just coordinating those steps, I send out cold emails to businesses and research labs to ask for supplies and we work on establishing more partnerships with organizations, such as the Medical Response Core, to get more PPE so we can deliver supplies where they are most needed."
The group, which was initially established in the D.C. metro area, quickly realized that they needed to expand regionally throughout the country in order to effectively provide for hospitals in need. As hot spots shift from region to region, the team focuses on equity with the supplies that they provide so they can help those who need it the most.
"We haven't had that many pandemics in the modern era, but hopefully this will make people think about the larger consequences and social dynamics at play the next time, because viruses mutate all the time, and this time, it just happened to be a really bad respiratory virus," Veral said. "This pandemic [has] really highlighted… health disparities. A lot of the people who are affected or dying are minorities or people who often do not have access to health care regularly. On a positive note, it's encouraged people to use telehealth more frequently, which can actually help bridge that gap for people who may have disabilities or other barriers to getting to hospitals. Hopefully, we can learn from this going forward."
Visit MedSupplyDrive for more information on how to volunteer or donate money or supplies.
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